House Democrats May Raise Taxes for Wealthy

WASHINGTON — House Democrats may raise taxes for those earning more than $500,000 a year, the newly elected speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said yesterday. "I think you can put everything on the table," Ms. Pelosi said on CBS's "Face the Nation.

Ms. Pelosi said Democrats would first look to raise revenues by going after uncollected taxes, closing loopholes for corporations, and targeting "waste, fraud, and abuse." But she warned that the tax burden may have to go up for wealthy Americans.

"We're not going to start with tax — repealing tax cuts — but they certainly are not off the table for people making over half a million dollars a year," the speaker said. She later added, "It's an option. It's not a first resort."

In one of their first moves upon taking control of the House last week, Democrats passed a budget change aimed at ending deficit spending. They approved a rule, known as "pay as you go," that requires Congress to match any tax cut either with a decrease in spending or a tax increase elsewhere.

Seeking to play down expectations that the newly empowered Democrats would immediately raise taxes, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel, said the party would need cooperation from Republicans and the Bush administration to get anything accomplished. "Democrats can't do anything alone, and we don't want to," Mr. Rangel, who is the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said on the ABC News program "This Week."

But advocates of lower taxes point to a Democrat-led vote last Thursday that allows them to waive, with a simple majority, a rule requiring three-fifths of the House to approve a tax increase. "That's the opening shot," the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, said. "They've made it easier to raise taxes, not more difficult."