Michael Bloomberg talks to reporters. | Azi Paybarah, via flickr Today is Simpson-Bowles Day for Michael Bloomberg

This morning, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in which the mayor repeated his now-familiar argument that in order for the federal government to reduce the deficit, stabilize the economy and reassure investors, Congress and the president must end the Bush-era tax cuts and slow the growth of entitlements.

Then, at 7 a.m., the mayor appeared on "CBS Morning" with Charlie Rose and made much the same case. An hour later, he appeared on a panel at the Pierre Hotel with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, authors of the politically difficult deficit-reduction plan for which he's been campaigning for months.


The mayor's focus on this issue may well speak to the role he hopes to occupy once his third term wraps up at the end of next year.

Talking with Charlie Rose today, the mayor began by trashing the president's so-called "Buffett Rule," a proposal that would make millionaires pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. Right now, many pay less than that because so much of their income is derived from capital gains on investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

"The Obama plan to raise taxes on the wealthy will only raise roughly 1 billion more per year," said the mayor. (The Joint Committee on Taxation differs slightly.)

"We have a deficit of $1.2 trillion a year. So it may be a political solution to a problem, but it is not a solution to our fiscal problem. If you want to balance the budget you have to raise taxes on everyone and you have to cut programs."

The mayor, a self-made billionaire with lots of friends on Wall Street who recently paid a solidarity visit to Goldman Sachs, doesn't believe capital gains should be taxed more heavily.

"We lower the taxes on capital gains to get people to invest," he said. "The good news is, it works. Warren Buffett did exactly what the tax code encouraged him to do."

But how might Erksine-Bowles ever make its way past all that gridlock in Washington?

"But that's why I wrote this op-ed piece," said the mayor. "That's why I'm gonna speak later on with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. We've got to tell the public: Call your representatives, whether it's the president, a senator or a congressman, and say, 'I want a concrete solution. It may not be a solution that I like, but you've got to come up with something that actually balances the budget.'"

The mayor argues that the president doesn't actually need to rely on congressional will to make this happen, but simply needs to expend some political capital.

"All the president has to do is say, 'I am going to veto any bill that tries to stop the automatic ending of the Bush-era tax codes for everybody,'" said the mayor. "He's got enough votes to sustain a veto. And then, everybody's taxes will go up. And then he should turn to the Republicans and say, 'You guys always said you wouldn't do anything in revenue. I took that off the table. Sorry, but I just was smarter than you guys were. Now let's talk about intelligent cuts rather than the sequestering thing, which would devastate defense.'"

Those cuts, said Bloomberg, would include slowly decreasing benefits or raising the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security, and increasing co-pays on Medicaid.

"I think the rich have to pay more, but we all have to pay more," said Bloomberg. "If you just raise taxse on the rich, you only raise a de minimus amount of money. Most of this country is middle class, and that's where most of the tax revenue is."