It's really a question of fairness and what kind of country we're going to live in. There are 22,000 people making over $1 million. They're paying an effective tax rate in the teens. As Warren Buffett said, he pays less in taxes effectively than his secretary does. That's not right.

Beginning in 2003 Plouffe and fellow AKPD partner David Axelrod worked on Barack Obama's 2004 Illinois Senate campaign beginning his association with Obama. Following complaints from human rights groups Plouffe donated his speaking fees to the National Democratic Institute. MTN has been listed on the "Iran Business Registry" of prominent watchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran since 2009.

A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media which he joined in 2000. Plouffe was an outside senior advisor to Obama since the president's first day in office and was then appointed as a Senior Advisor to the President (inside the White House) in 2011 following the resignation of David Axelrod who went on to start Obama's reelection campaign.