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Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

605 points by asanwal 15y ago

cromulent 15y ago
It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago. "I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-markets-swoon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-m...
- chc 15y ago
  Buffet has been making noise about this for a long time now. Maybe now people will listen? I'm kind of skeptical.
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  Buffett has been saying this for years. I don't expect anyone to start listening now.
- dublinclontarf 15y ago
  We'll let them voluntarily pay more taxes then, or donate to charity, or start a charity or whatever. By their very nature taxes are not voluntary, they're taken by force of law. Don't pay them then go to jail. This is a stupid (but very easy) argument to make, one (of the richest)rich person says he'd be happy to pay more tax, therefor all rich people should pay more. If he really wants to make a difference he'd be way better off spending his money on charirty, then it's not going to be entirely eaten up paying for beurocracy. THe government is not efficient AT ANYTHING. When you pay taxes you're funding all that crap you don't agree with. Wars, funding for lobbies, paying politicians fat saleries, all those police raids on pot smokers etc. Why the hell would you want to give more to that?
  - dwolfson20 15y ago
    Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.
    - andrewflnr 15y ago
      Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.
      - dwolfson20 15y ago
        This is an extremely abstract argument. It's a matter of degree. If everyone gave all their money to charity, we'd have no government at all.
        andrewflnr 15y ago
        You're taking my abstract argument farther than I intended; perhaps I should have been more careful. I'm not saying we should give all our money to charity, just that it should be strongly preferred to paying increased taxes, especially with the goal of helping people.
        Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
        I think the rich can do both. They can pay taxes and give to charity like most ordinary people do. What is so special about them?
        rooshdi 15y ago
        Exactly, as much as some individuals would like to focus solely on the ills of government, there are socially beneficial programs supported by the government which need continual funding: http://know.about.com/Government_Programs http://know.about.com/Government_Programs
      - 15y ago
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure this has happened lots of times. Matt Damon said something along those lines recently.
  - streptomycin 15y ago
    Matt Damon is rich, not wealthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
robryan 15y ago
I suspect that the kind of people working behind the scenes to keep things as they are aren't anywhere near the super rich but the well off for who a high tax rate would impact their standard of living. Once you get up to the super rich they really aren't putting all earnings into the standard of living they keep. (Don't have anything to back this up, just the impression I get from reading bits and pieces on the issue)
sliverstorm 15y ago
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like him. He is so frank, it seems like he'd be a very interesting person to meet.
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  He really is amazing. I live in Omaha. You can drive by Buffett's house, and you'd have no idea who lives there if you didn't already know. I know people who have interacted with him on a regular basis, and he is just as personable and down-to-earth as his public image suggests.
- zzeroparticle 15y ago
  I've always enjoyed reading Buffett's remarks in Berkshire's shareholders reports because of those very reasons. There's no BS; he just tells it the way it is, covering both successes and failures. And when he talks about the overall economy, he puts it in terms that people can readily grasp the concept without being swamped by gobbledegook. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html
  - dwolfson20 15y ago
    He also puts on a great shareholder's meeting every year, where he and his #2 Charlie Munger spend a lot of time just answering questions. And of course, there are the discounts at Dairy Queen and Nebraska Furniture Mart. He even supports local independent businesses like The Bookworm. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/VisGuide2011.pdf http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/VisGuide2011.pdf
- MikeCapone 15y ago
  I suggest you check out The Snowball, his most recent and authoritative biography.
ecounysis 15y ago
I wish Buffett would run for president. He could probably get a few things done.
- Jach 15y ago
  Alternatively buy the President + Congress.
  - wpietri 15y ago
    Definitely. He might not be able to buy the whole thing, but as long as he substantially drives up the cost of a Congressman, that's a step forward. A couple hundred grand (and 10 million in lobbying money) gets you billions of benefits, which is way too cheap.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  People always say stuff like this, but I think quite the opposite. Buffet, and people like him (Gates, Jobs, Welch, etc...), while great businesspeople are used to being able to say something and everyone jumps. In business, everyone is working together to make the company more money. With some exceptions, you can create an incentive structure that rewards that. Government, in the US at least, is very different. Buffet would be dealing with people, congress, who will certainly not jump when he says something. In fact they'll often make themselves completely unavailable. He'll be in a situation where people will actually do things that harm the country if they could remove Buffet from office (to get someone from their party in office). In government, you don't negotiate in good faith. And Buffet wouldn't be able to fire anyone in congress. I suspect one of the first things Buffet would say after working with congress is, "I'd fire half of these bozos if they worked for me!" Unfortunately, these are the people who will decide what legislation lands on his desk. I feel like gang leaders are the people who best understand what it would be like to be President.
a5seo 15y ago
What's missing is an estimate of the revenue impact of doing what Buffet suggests. I've always heard that this kind of policy would add little to revenue, because there is simply far more tax money available by taxing earned income.
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  I'd have liked to see that, too, but one can run the numbers if one wants. Also, isn't getting more money better than not getting more money? (NOTE: We certainly need to slow our spending, as well, but I fail to see how an increase in revenue is a bad thing.)
- dmayle 15y ago
  If you just count the top 400 income earners in the US that he mentions in the article, and they restore the the 1992 rate of 29.2% (as opposed to the 21.5% of 2008), then we're talking about 7 billion dollars
  - systemtrigger 15y ago
    Check your math. $16.9 billion * (29.2% - 21.5%) = $1.30 billion. As to the additional revenues Buffett wants from the 236,883 richest households, if we assume the average of those households had taxable income of $5 million and if we raise their rates by 10% we get $118 billion.
    - monkeypizza 15y ago
      No, he is talking about restoring the 1992 rate onto the 2008 income, which was 90.9 billion NOT your 16.9 billion. So the increase would be about 7 billion. from the article: >In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.
      - 15y ago
drblast 15y ago
Voluntary gifts of money can be sent to the U.S. Treasury at this address: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html One has to ask, if any super rich person really considered the U.S. Government a worthwhile investment, why are they donating to various charities instead of to the Treasury?
- netmau5 15y ago
  Most decent charities deliver far more per unit donated than the US government could ever wish to achieve. If you're interested in pure charity, you're not going to get much bang for your buck at the federal level.
  - drblast 15y ago
    My point exactly. It's easy to consider who's paying what taxes and thinking about if that's fair, but the right question to ask is, "Is this a worthwhile investment?" Who pays what in taxes is really a diversion.
    - henryprecheur 15y ago
      > Who pays what in taxes is really a diversion. The "who" is actually pretty important. Tax the working man more, and you'll discourage working. Tax the rich, and he might move to another country. There are many ways to raise money for the state, and none is really "fair". There will always somebody who'll be screwed in some way.
  - hans00 15y ago
    [citation needed]
    - olalonde 15y ago
      Using government data, Robert L. Woodson calculated that, on average, 70 cents of each dollar budgeted for government assistance goes not to the poor, but to the members of the welfare bureaucracy and others serving the poor. Michael Tanner cites regional studies supporting this 70/30 split. http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf
BrainScraps 15y ago
Reading this just makes me think of all of the lobbying dollars and campaign contributions that must have been paid by the super-rich to get these tax breaks. Am I the only one that feels some populist rage welling up when he hears how much money is wasted on campaigning for office and influencing people in office? Aren't there more worthy uses of wealth and scarce resources? And it just pains me that so many people think that they "have to play the game" to get things done by politicians. Non-profit organizations that use large percentages of their spend on "wining and dining" elected or appointed officials to try to make things beneficial things happen. Ugh.
- ordinary 15y ago
  The problem is not how much money is being 'donated'. The amount is fairly insignificant. The problem is the influence it buys and how that influence impacts the bigger picture. So yes, I agree with you that this kind of corruption is a big problem. But how much money goes around in that circuit is not what concerns me, personally.
- dantheman 15y ago
  They only do that because it pays off. If the government was more decentralized and controlled significantly less dollars the incentives wouldn't be there and it wouldn't happen. It's a structural problem that happens in any system. Where power is concentrated it becomes beneficial to influence it - the more concentrated the more that can be spent.
  - rdtsc 15y ago
    I bet it wouldn't phase them a bit. They would create a watchdog professional organization (see US Chamber of Commerce) that makes sure local elections and appointments are influenced just as effectively as federal ones. This already happens in judge elections in many states. Certain "business-friendly" candidates are showered in campaign money, with the expectations that when certain cases are appealed those judges will end up making "the right choice".
    - 15y ago
yummyfajitas 15y ago
If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Anecdotes of Warren Buffet's office aside, in general the richest people pay the largest proportion of taxes. We already lean quite heavily on the top 1% - the top 1% actually pays more in taxes than the bottom 90%. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html A graph of the data in that article: http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png In terms of taxation of the top 10%, the US is the most progressive country in the OECD. http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html Maybe the tax code needs tweaking at the level of the top 400, but it's very progressive up to the level of the top 1%.
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  >Maybe the tax code needs tweaking at the level of the top 400, but it's very progressive up to the level of the top 1%. If you read the whole piece, that's exactly what he says.
- ikirill 15y ago
  The richest pay the largest proportion of taxes because they earn so much. In the article, 400 hundred people make $90 billion, and it takes 3 million people working at $30,000 a year to collectively earn as much.
- wpietri 15y ago
  > If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? I would be fascinated to hear what you'd suggest someone cut when they're earning ~10-15k/year. For those likewise unfamiliar, I recommend sci-fi author John Scalzi's "Being Poor": http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ Both the article and the comments are worth reading.
  - lotharbot 15y ago
    > Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? yummyfajitas lives in Pune, India. Read through his comment history for comparisons of the rich in India to the poor in the US; it's eye-opening.
ck2 15y ago
The problem is getting low to middle income people to stop voting against themselves. Good luck with that, they all seem to think they are going to be billionaires someday so better keep those billionaire taxes low. Either that or by bribing the wealthy with low taxes they might only ship out half the jobs overseas instead of all of them. It's just dumbfounding. Election after election, over and over.
- breck 15y ago
  "The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre—what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. -Ulysses S. Grant People fighting or voting against their own self interest has gone on for a long time, sadly.
  - ck2 15y ago
    I've come to the conclusion that the logic becomes "well if I can't have it, no-one will". People basically trying to take away assistance/help to others by trying to vote it away from everyone, since they somehow perceive themselves as better than others suffering on the lower rungs on society. This also explains why people try to vote away unions and benefits for teachers/schools, the very foundation of society, while they are okay with CEOs having multi-million annual stock bonuses while getting paid $1 to dodge taxes.
    - dwolfson20 15y ago
      People can't vote away multi-million dollar CEO bonuses, though.
      - ck2 15y ago
        They vote against "clawback" taxes on those bonuses, it's the same thing as saying the bonuses are okay.
karmafeeder 15y ago
As a freshly minted middle-class American, I disagree with Mr. Buffet's argument here. Though his eagerness to share the tax-burden is laudable, I hope that tax rates stay low for him. I would pay higher taxes to keep it that way. Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money.
- revscat 15y ago
  I don't trust capitalists with it.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - olalonde 15y ago
    I can't help but wonder what the hell you are doing on a venture capital firm's website.
    - njharman 15y ago
      Learning about the enemy.
- webXL 15y ago
  It's as if wealth is zero-sum, and Mr. Buffet believes he and his ilk have taken some of it from the rest of the population. But he's not going to go without his generous slice of the pie if his friends aren't forced to go without theirs. But he and some of his friends are voluntarily giving their pie to worthwhile causes... as we speak! no force necessary! I would pay higher taxes to keep it that way. The sad reality is that the government is going to have to raise revenue somehow, and if that's the case, I'd prefer to raise it on those with a lot of passive income, who are less likely to move their assets out of the country. How you achieve that objective is beyond me.
- kahawe 15y ago
  > Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money. The only logical conclusion there would be moving out to a different country that offers equal or better living standards because the longer you stay, the more money you give to that government you do not trust.
aneth 15y ago
Could everyone make sure every Republican and Tea Partier they know reads this? Republican concerns are critical to this country, but the current incarnation is deeply harmful.
- reader2000 15y ago
  It's pointless: for them their belief trumps facts.
TheSkeptic 15y ago
Funny. Buffett certainly didn't mind a little coddling in 2008. He was arguably one of the largest individual beneficiaries of bailouts which shifted ungodly amounts of toxic debt from failed private institutions to taxpayers. See http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-betrayal/ http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-b.... While it's now mighty generous of Buffett to invite the government to increase his taxes, he could spare us another (http://www.cnbc.com/id/40229527/Warren_Buffett_s_Letter_to_Uncle_Sam http://www.cnbc.com/id/40229527/Warren_Buffett_s_Letter_to_U...) nauseating and embarrassing New York Times op-ed and instead put his money where his mouth is. As another poster has noted, the Treasury will gladly cash Buffett's check (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm).
- MikeCapone 15y ago
  The whole financial system and everybody that depends on it was a beneficiary of the bailouts. If everything collapsed, everybody would have suffered. Buffett just happens to own a bigger slice of the market than almost anyone, so of course he benefited significantly. But singling him out, especially since he's stayed away from wall street's games and made extraordinary efforts to keep things above board for decades, is totally unfair.
  - danenania 15y ago
    "The whole financial system and everybody that depends on it was a beneficiary of the bailouts. If everything collapsed, everybody would have suffered." A narrative convenient for powerful banks that was created by powerful banks and allied politicians. People have suffered and continue to suffer because of the crimes these institutions have committed. Propping up their corpses only helps the criminals who created the situation. Clearing out bad businesses so that new ones can take their place is a central pillar of capitalism. If you really believe a bunch of billionaires who claim the world's going to end if they lose their billions, well, you're gullible at best. Far from forestalling suffering, the continued operation of these entities and their influence on legislation perpetuates it. Their collapse is the best thing we could hope for, even if it causes short term turbulence.
andrewflnr 15y ago
Warren buffet pays about 17%, and the people in his office pay an average of 36%. So the solution, the way to restore fairness, is to raise taxes on him? I don't really think so. Maybe I'm a bit of a wingnut, but I find tax rates of about 30% disgusting simply on moral grounds, and I don't see why the discussion should go much further. Surely one of a government's prime constraints should be not screwing its citizens?
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  Without government to pay for the roads citizens drive to their businesses, and the infrastructure that gives them water and temperature moderation, and 1,000 other things that are essential to provide for functioning commerce, citizens wouldn't be making so much money as they do. And I'd wager that effect is worth a lot more than 30%.
  - andrewflnr 15y ago
    The question is, does it require more than 30%?
    - dwolfson20 15y ago
      Maybe. It depends on what we as a society want our government to spend money on. Considering our current demands in this country (no cuts to entitlements), I think it requires at least that much.
    - bandushrew 15y ago
      surely you should have an answer to that question before you start claiming that 30% is screwing you?
      - orangecat 15y ago
        Exhibit A would be the lack of societal collapse during the 90s, when government spending per-capita and as a percentage of GDP was significantly lower than today.
aj700 15y ago
Taxing the money that moves - as it is earned - will only produce so much revenue. The rich need to be taxed, not beccause it will allow lots of lovely spending, because the gov will inevitably do a bad job of spending it. Though you could put it towards debt reduction first. You have to tax the money that doesn't move. The millions of unneeded unspent $ that the rich are sitting on, with a wealth tax. You may not even make the poor richer, but you will make the rich poorer. Good.
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  It's a nice intention, but how do you devise that mechanism? If I keep $10,000 in my savings account for 30 years, are you going to tax it every year?
  - felipemnoa 15y ago
    The government does that already by printing more money. The more money printed the less valuable your $10K. Better to keep money on assets that do not devalue with inflation.
  - wpietri 15y ago
    Yes, that's how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
- mmorett 15y ago
  > You may not even make the poor richer, but you will make the rich poorer. Good. "Unneeded, unspent money" is none of your business. It's not your money.
  - hans00 15y ago
    Right. It's all of our money, because we all share the same society. Sorry, "it's mine, all mine" doesn't cut it outside an Ayn Rand fantasy novel or a Ron Paul forum.
    - 15y ago
hugh4life 15y ago
"But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate. " If you really want to see something get passed, you're better off putting the cutoffs at $5mil and $25mil(maybe even slightly higher). The $1mil cutoff sounds nice in a soundbite and it polls well, but it's not hard to find sympathetic faces(small businesses and large family farms) who would get caught up in that. His cutoffs would end up hurting the the "upper middle class" and the "lower rich" more than the "super rich". And if you want "shared sacrifice", you should be talking about a consumption tax. What this country needs most is a firm federal spending cap at 20% of GDP. There would be less opposition to raising taxes and balancing the budget if the measuring stick for spending wasn't tax revenues but the GDP.
- pmorici 15y ago
  Buffet is talking about "Taxable Income" meaning a small business or family farm would have to be making 1 Million in profits for it's owners before they would actually be effected by such an increase in rates. Consumption tax would likely put an undue burden on the poor because where as the rich invest and save a large portion of their income the poor spend close to 100% of what they make on things like food and housing.
  - hugh4life 15y ago
    "Buffet is talking about "Taxable Income" meaning a small business or family farm would have to be making 1 Million in profits for it's owners before they would actually be effected by such an increase in rates." I understand perfectly... go ahead, put the cutoff at 1Mil and you're going to lose politically. "Consumption tax would likely put an undue burden on the poor" I don't care... I'm mocking the idea of "shared sacrifice"... the poor pay almost no taxes.
- shangaslammi 15y ago
  How on earth does consumption tax have anything to do with "shared sacrifice"? Consumption tax wrecks the purchasing power of the poor (who spend pretty much 100% of their income on taxed goods) and doesn't have any effect on the purchasing power of the super rich (who typically only spend a minor portion of their income on consumer goods).
carsongross 15y ago
Thanks for the advice, Warren. Can we have our Goldman bailout money back now? Yours, The U.S. Taxpayers
- siglesias 15y ago
  Most of it has been paid back or is on track to be paid back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
jeffool 15y ago
A couple of recent quotes of his: "I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection." http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/warren-buffett-i-could-end-the-deficit-in-5-minutes/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/warren-buffett-i-could-... Also, he's against having a debt ceiling. "All it does is slow down a process and divert people’s energy, causes people to posture. It doesn’t really make any sense," http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59335.html#ixzz1V4WmujAg http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59335.html#ixzz1V4...
chailatte 15y ago
The combined wealth of American's billionaires is only $1.5 trillion. [1] If we taxed them 100%, it would only pay off our budget deficit for one year. We still have around 54 trillion total debt to pay down. Not to mention 115 trillion unfunded liabilities. And which entrepreneurs would be stupid enough to work 14 hours a day and hire workers, knowing that the government will tax them 90%? They would all flee the country. We have too much debt, period. From military, medicare, and social security spending. Problem is, if we reduce any one of these, either our soldiers returns home broke and angry, or the seniors die of starvation/disease. (35% of Americans already over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone. Median retirement savings of households over the age of 65 is less than $45,000). Tough choice. But it looks like the current politicians aren't going to make a decision, but let Bernanke print dollars until hyperinflation arrives. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/10/140943.html http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/10/140943.html
- reader2000 15y ago
  Stop fabricating numbers. The US National debt is about $14.5 trillion, not anywhere close to 54 trillion. Btw, the Bush tax cuts — costing $1.8 trillion from 2002 to 2009 — are a big reason we got into this deep hole. Buffet: I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
  - webXL 15y ago
    Buffet who should know better: correlation doesn't imply causation
  - swolchok 15y ago
    Had you checked the first google result for United States debt, you would have found where the confusion is coming from: the national debt is 14.5 trillion, and the total debt is 54 trillion (Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/). I'm guessing "total debt" according to the debt clock includes things like state governments and private citizens, although Wikipedia claims that the 14.5 trillion figure is total debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt).
VT_Hokie 15y ago
If Warren feels so guilty, then he should write a check to the US Treasury for his entire net worth.
tomjen3 15y ago
If Buffet finds it so wrong that he pays so little tax, I am sure the IRS wouldn't mind if he paid more. Personally I would adjust Social Security to the expected life time (and re-adjust it every year); get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; half the army (you got nukes, you don't need that big an Army to defend yourself) and stop the war on drugs.
scottjad 15y ago
Warren is omitting very crucial information and knowingly deceiving most people. He's pretending he doesn't pay very many taxes, but he does, he just pays different taxes. In this article he mentions capital gains, income, and payroll taxes but does not mention corporate income taxes. Corporate income taxes are taxes on the owners of corporations. I don't know exactly how much he paid, but some quick math I'd guess he alone paid 1.6 billion last year in corporate income taxes. (Berkshire paid 5.6 billion, Warren's worth 53 billion, Berkshire 178 billion, giving Warren 29% ownership, if you have better numbers feel free to share). So he mentions 6 million dollars in taxes but omits 1.6 billion from the discussion.
- hypersoar 15y ago
  It's hardly fair to Berkshire Hathaway's income as part of Buffet's personal income. Unlike his own, its money is not his to spend however he likes.
  - scottjad 15y ago
    If Warren owned 100% of Berkshire would you still think it's unfair to consider what Berkshire pays in taxes a tax on Warren? Then why is it not fair to consider it on a percentage basis like I have? The owners of corporations are the people being taxed by corporate income taxes, since without these taxes, that money would be theirs to spend as they wish, either by investing in their business or taking it out by paying dividends.
- DenisM 15y ago
  Corporate income taxes are taxes on the owners of corporations. Well, no.
  - scottjad 15y ago
    Well, thank you for your informative response. Without a corporate income tax owners can withdraw the incomes minus dividend taxes. With corporate income tax they can withdraw income minus corporate income tax minus dividend taxes. How can you say they're not the ones paying the tax when the money could go directly in their pockets if not for the tax?
shmulkey18 15y ago
This guy kills me. He's more than welcome to write a big check to the US government. Until he does, you'll all forgive me when I consider him somewhat less than sincere in his desire to see more of his income go to the IRS.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
Buffet isn't this economically illiterate. The super rich must wish to hose the only sort of rich.
orijing 15y ago
All of the comments here attacking Warren Buffett's authenticity, suggesting that he should put his money where his mouth is and write the Treasury a big fat check, are missing the whole point. Services provided by the government are public goods. It's blindingly obvious that a single person cannot pay for those public goods. Just Buffett's own contributions, no matter how much he donates, will not be enough to solve our budget issue. It's called shared sacrifice because it's meaningless unless everyone participates. It's like the neighborhood park (i.e. medicare/social security): Everyone wants one, but nobody wants to pay for it. In steps the neighborhood's rich kid (Buffett), who suggests that all the rich kids pitch in to pay for the park. If that happened, everyone would be made better off, but one kid alone isn't enough. This is a very canonical problem of public services provisioning and funding. It's completely naive to sit back and suggest Buffett tackle the issue himself, because we all know that's ridiculous. Open your eyes. The problem is not Buffett's to solve. But he recognizes that there is a problem. Apologies for the harsh tone, but it baffles me how members of Hacker News can think so naively. The attacks on Buffett are utterly unfair and unjustified. We should all have an open mind and try to understand the proposal.
- cromulent 15y ago
  Agreed. He's not trying to "make a donation", he's saying that everyone should share the burden - including himself and people like him. It's not just that the rich kids should pay for the park, it's that everyone but the rich kids are being asked to pay some extra.
  - gaius 15y ago
    Does Mr Buffett employ an accountant to do his taxes? Does said accountant employ any tax avoidance strategies?
    - epscylonb 15y ago
      Wouldn't you if you had tons of money?, especially if all the other "rich kids" are doing the same?. If you expect people to always do the altruistic thing then be prepared for a life full of disappointment. The best you can do is try to shape peoples behavior. Personally I would prefer a flat percentage rate of tax with an exception for very low incomes where it just isn't worth the governments time trying to collect it. This would probably raise most peoples tax and lower rich peoples tax but I believe it is "fairer" for everybody to pay the same fixed proportion of their income. At the same time though I would simplify business taxes as well, get rid of loopholes, stop companies that do business in a country off shoring their profits. It is insane that some companies view their accounting departments as profit centers. Flat tax economies boom, and they are progressive in the sense that there is no penalty for trying to earn more money.
jhgjhg 15y ago
Who pays income taxes? The rich mostly. http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
genieyclo 15y ago
Politics is rearing its ugly head again on HN. Flagged.
jquery 15y ago
Notice that Warren Buffett is asking for tax increases on those who make more than $1M and $10M respectively. I'm fine with this. He seems to "get", unlike so many Democrats, that $250k/year is not rich. Where I get nervous is all the Democrats who seem to think that there is no difference between $250k and $1M/year and up. I get kind of ill seeing obscenely wealthy Democrats in Congress, almost all making MUCH more $250k, trying to lump my household in with the rich. I'm willing to pay more, but not if these wealthy Democrats won't create a distinction between $250k/year, $1M/year, and $10+M/year.
- eftpotrm 15y ago
  While I agree there's a big distinction between someone earning $250k/year and $10m/year, are you aware that if your family is earning that much then you're earning over eight times the median household income?
  - callmeed 15y ago
    You're wrong. First, the median income in the US is now at or slightly above $50K per year. Second, assuming earned income (which is fair even for $250k earners), a median income household will be in either a 15% or 25% tax bracket (depending on if married). A $250k household will be in a 33% tax bracket.
    - eftpotrm 15y ago
      My statistic was showing $31k, but if we say $50k, fine - it's now merely five times the median, not eight. That's still a comfortable situation by almost anyone's standards. Now, if your $50k household is in a 25% tax bracket, they're paying $12.5k so leaving a net income of $37.5k. Your $250k household at 33% are paying $83k, net income $167k, 4.4 times the net income of the $50k household. So what was your point exactly?
- callmeed 15y ago
  Agree completely. I think the problem is that $250K is around that "top 1%" mark. It's a convenient demarcation line and makes for a smooth soundbite. What many don't get is that the bottom of the top 1% includes doctors, attorneys, and entrepreneurs.
davidw 15y ago
Off topic: most articles about politics.
pakitan 15y ago
I'm a huge fan of Warren Buffet but in this case I think the math just doesn't seem right. I don't have the exact numbers, I took data from wikipedia and the NYT article, so, please, let me know if my math is way off. From the article, there are about 200,000 people with income of $1M+. Let's make it $5M per person. That's 1 trillion USD combined income. The rest of the taxpayers seem to be about 200,000,000 with an average income of about $25,000. Combined income = 5 trillion. So, if they reduce the tax of the bottom group with 2%, as Mr. Buffet suggests, the tax of the upper bracket has to be hiked with 10% just to compensate. And if we add another 10%, just for the fun of it, that's 100 billion taken from the rich but it's still a measly part of the budget (around 3 trillion) not to mention the debt (15 trillion). And don't forget that people with 1M+ income have a vast number of legal and semi-legal tricks at their disposal to reduce their tax rate. The moment you increase the tax too much, you start seeing money flowing to offshore locations. So, while "tax the rich more" and "let them share the burden" are great feel-good slogans, I don't think they offer any practical solution for the huge USA deficits.
- benjoffe 15y ago
  Your big assumption there that those 200,000 people with income of $1M+ have an average of $5M per person is where your logic fails. This source: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=a7jenngfc4um7_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=personal_income#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=personal_income&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=a7jenngfc4um7_&#... shows the US total personal income for 2010 being over 12.5 trillion, your two groups only add up to 6 trillion.
  - pakitan 15y ago
    Well, given some kind of power law distribution, I don't think the $5M are that far off. In fact, this suggests that my guess may have been on the higher end: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in... It says average income for top 0.1% is $3M and those 200,000 are exactly the top 0.1%. I'm not sure where the huge discrepancy comes from, when it comes to the total personal income stats you posted and I hope someone can clear this up.
rdl 15y ago
The really low hanging fruit, IMO, to raise tax revenue without "raising taxes" (in the sense of raising tax rates) is to reclassify carried interest as ordinary income. That, combined with a few other similar changes (mortgage interest deduction, maybe funding ssi and medicaid separately from old age and medicare) and huge cuts in defense (due to ending 1-4 of the wars), seems like it would be fairly effective. What I'd like to see is a flat income tax for ordinary and dividend/capital gains at 25-35% for all income, huge cuts in spending, combined with a single refundable tax credit set at ~subsistence income, universally applied. However, that's a much bigger change and pretty unlikely to happen.
scottjad 15y ago
Warren's real federal tax rate on 99% of his income: 59% A portfolio company makes $1 in income. Without any taxes, Warren could put $1 in his pocket if he wished. Instead the portfolio company (Wells Fargo) pays 33% taxes, then the holding company (Berkshire) pays 29% taxes, then Warren pays 15% dividend taxes. In the end it's 59%, all of which is really truly a tax on Warren once the smoke and mirrors go away. (- 1 (* 1 0.67 0.71 0.85)) => 0.595655 So right now 7 out of 12 months of his income is taken by the federal government, and he thinks they should take more! Maybe 9 out of 12 months, where ideally (in his mind) the state government would then come in and take the rest.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Once I realized that you could take all the money from the rich, stop all defense spending, and still have a massive budget problem? These sorts of things stopped being an issue for me. Seriously folks, it's a red herring, an issue created to make sure that one party has something to fight the other party over. If you want to sack the rich, have at it. Just don't pretend that by taking that position you are doing anything at all for the national treasury. Or poor folks, for that matter. In the larger picture, many technologists view the state as something of the past. Tens of thousands of people make their money simply because computers are hooked to each other over wires. It has very little to do with national budgets or policy (yes, you can throw out a bunch of silly nonsense about national broadband policies and such, but let's get real: this economic activity takes place in all sorts of various scenarios.) So if you are the type to sit around pining away your day, thinking about all those super-rich folks and how good they have it, I'm sure this will be a fun article for you. If, however, you are concerned with public policy -- and the fact that in the US, at least, the majority of people do not even pay an income tax, yet vote on the rates for the rich minorities (gee, wonder how that will turn out?) then this is all so much posturing. I don't feel a need to slam Buffett. He's a patriotic citizen who means well. Smarter guy than me in a lot of areas. I'm just not sure that this article has anywhere near enough merit to have 500+ points on HN. It offers no solutions, only rehashed populist tripe. If you want to set the income tax at 95% of all money made over a million bucks? Have at it. It's not important.
- deleted 15y ago
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- ender7 15y ago
  Please supply a source for your claim in your first sentence.
  - travisp 15y ago
    The entire net worth (not income) of all billionaires in the United States may be about $1.3 trillion[1]. Therefore, if you took all of the money currently held from all U.S. billionaires, you would decrease the national debt by about 10%, or cover the deficit for just one year. A high (say, 90%) income tax rate would presumably bring in even less. 1 - http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/interesting-numbers-forbes-rich-list_446045.html http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/interesting-number...
cfontes 15y ago
Very well pointed, it takes a lot of altruism to say that when you are the potential target. I read Snowball and like this man actions and thoughts. He is really a very unique kind of person, some might argue that he did some things to benefit himself in the past, But I disagree and think that the world would be a better place if more man like this were in charge of the power over civilization.
bmahmood 15y ago
Majority of the comments seem to be discussing the merits / morality of taxation, rather than Buffet's central points. Entertaining the discussion on the merits of taxation, I've found John Rawls' Justice as Fairness to be especially enlightening. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_as_Fairness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_as_Fairness) Essentially, a just society is one in which decisions are made to benefit the worst-off in society. Given a majority of the factors that contribute to individual success are outside our control (what family you were born into, what neighborhood you lived in, what school you went to, etc), a just society would in turn be one which compensates for such naturally-occurring inequalities. He provides a well-thought out argument for how progressive taxation is a necessary (but certainly not sufficient) lever to do so. Now in practice, it is true that our government has been terribly inefficient in managing tax revenue and creating public goods. But that shouldn't discount the role government can play. Realizing the potential reach and role of government, the goal shouldn't be to neuter it, but to make it more efficient. On Buffet's central points, I find them hard to argue with. 1) Lower taxes on the rich in the last 10 years have been neither necessary nor sufficient for economic growth or job creation, especially in light of the 20 years before that. 2) The front-end drivers for entrepreneurs, VCs, and angels have more to do with product creation, addressing a market need, and simply playing the game. Money is of course a big part in too, but tax cuts only play a back-end behavioral incentive- they affect the NPV of behavior that was already in play. 3) Just because the actual tax revenue on the rich may not put a huge dent on the deficit (as some comments seem to imply), the point is that the billions in tax revenue it would raise could still stave of cuts to programs that the poor and middle class depend on. (And larger food for thought on the role of tax cuts, and how they've contributed to the deficit http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-chart-that-should-accompany-every-discussion-of-deficits/238786/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-char...)
zackattack 15y ago
Taxation is subject to marketplace effects. I've learned something from Mr. Buffet.

605 points by asanwal 15y ago

It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago. "I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-markets-swoon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-m...

chc 15y ago
Buffet has been making noise about this for a long time now. Maybe now people will listen? I'm kind of skeptical.
dwolfson20 15y ago
Buffett has been saying this for years. I don't expect anyone to start listening now.
dublinclontarf 15y ago
We'll let them voluntarily pay more taxes then, or donate to charity, or start a charity or whatever. By their very nature taxes are not voluntary, they're taken by force of law. Don't pay them then go to jail. This is a stupid (but very easy) argument to make, one (of the richest)rich person says he'd be happy to pay more tax, therefor all rich people should pay more. If he really wants to make a difference he'd be way better off spending his money on charirty, then it's not going to be entirely eaten up paying for beurocracy. THe government is not efficient AT ANYTHING. When you pay taxes you're funding all that crap you don't agree with. Wars, funding for lobbies, paying politicians fat saleries, all those police raids on pot smokers etc. Why the hell would you want to give more to that?
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.
  - andrewflnr 15y ago
    Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.
    - dwolfson20 15y ago
      This is an extremely abstract argument. It's a matter of degree. If everyone gave all their money to charity, we'd have no government at all.
      - andrewflnr 15y ago
        You're taking my abstract argument farther than I intended; perhaps I should have been more careful. I'm not saying we should give all our money to charity, just that it should be strongly preferred to paying increased taxes, especially with the goal of helping people.
        Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
        I think the rich can do both. They can pay taxes and give to charity like most ordinary people do. What is so special about them?
      - rooshdi 15y ago
        Exactly, as much as some individuals would like to focus solely on the ills of government, there are socially beneficial programs supported by the government which need continual funding: http://know.about.com/Government_Programs http://know.about.com/Government_Programs
    - 15y ago
andrewflnr 15y ago
I'm pretty sure this has happened lots of times. Matt Damon said something along those lines recently.
- streptomycin 15y ago
  Matt Damon is rich, not wealthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

robryan 15y ago

I suspect that the kind of people working behind the scenes to keep things as they are aren't anywhere near the super rich but the well off for who a high tax rate would impact their standard of living. Once you get up to the super rich they really aren't putting all earnings into the standard of living they keep. (Don't have anything to back this up, just the impression I get from reading bits and pieces on the issue)

sliverstorm 15y ago

The more I hear about this guy, the more I like him. He is so frank, it seems like he'd be a very interesting person to meet.

dwolfson20 15y ago
He really is amazing. I live in Omaha. You can drive by Buffett's house, and you'd have no idea who lives there if you didn't already know. I know people who have interacted with him on a regular basis, and he is just as personable and down-to-earth as his public image suggests.
zzeroparticle 15y ago
I've always enjoyed reading Buffett's remarks in Berkshire's shareholders reports because of those very reasons. There's no BS; he just tells it the way it is, covering both successes and failures. And when he talks about the overall economy, he puts it in terms that people can readily grasp the concept without being swamped by gobbledegook. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html
- dwolfson20 15y ago
  He also puts on a great shareholder's meeting every year, where he and his #2 Charlie Munger spend a lot of time just answering questions. And of course, there are the discounts at Dairy Queen and Nebraska Furniture Mart. He even supports local independent businesses like The Bookworm. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/VisGuide2011.pdf http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/VisGuide2011.pdf
MikeCapone 15y ago
I suggest you check out The Snowball, his most recent and authoritative biography.

ecounysis 15y ago

I wish Buffett would run for president. He could probably get a few things done.

Jach 15y ago
Alternatively buy the President + Congress.
- wpietri 15y ago
  Definitely. He might not be able to buy the whole thing, but as long as he substantially drives up the cost of a Congressman, that's a step forward. A couple hundred grand (and 10 million in lobbying money) gets you billions of benefits, which is way too cheap.
kenjackson 15y ago
People always say stuff like this, but I think quite the opposite. Buffet, and people like him (Gates, Jobs, Welch, etc...), while great businesspeople are used to being able to say something and everyone jumps. In business, everyone is working together to make the company more money. With some exceptions, you can create an incentive structure that rewards that. Government, in the US at least, is very different. Buffet would be dealing with people, congress, who will certainly not jump when he says something. In fact they'll often make themselves completely unavailable. He'll be in a situation where people will actually do things that harm the country if they could remove Buffet from office (to get someone from their party in office). In government, you don't negotiate in good faith. And Buffet wouldn't be able to fire anyone in congress. I suspect one of the first things Buffet would say after working with congress is, "I'd fire half of these bozos if they worked for me!" Unfortunately, these are the people who will decide what legislation lands on his desk. I feel like gang leaders are the people who best understand what it would be like to be President.

a5seo 15y ago

What's missing is an estimate of the revenue impact of doing what Buffet suggests. I've always heard that this kind of policy would add little to revenue, because there is simply far more tax money available by taxing earned income.

dwolfson20 15y ago
I'd have liked to see that, too, but one can run the numbers if one wants. Also, isn't getting more money better than not getting more money? (NOTE: We certainly need to slow our spending, as well, but I fail to see how an increase in revenue is a bad thing.)
dmayle 15y ago
If you just count the top 400 income earners in the US that he mentions in the article, and they restore the the 1992 rate of 29.2% (as opposed to the 21.5% of 2008), then we're talking about 7 billion dollars
- systemtrigger 15y ago
  Check your math. $16.9 billion * (29.2% - 21.5%) = $1.30 billion. As to the additional revenues Buffett wants from the 236,883 richest households, if we assume the average of those households had taxable income of $5 million and if we raise their rates by 10% we get $118 billion.
  - monkeypizza 15y ago
    No, he is talking about restoring the 1992 rate onto the 2008 income, which was 90.9 billion NOT your 16.9 billion. So the increase would be about 7 billion. from the article: >In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.
    - 15y ago

drblast 15y ago

Voluntary gifts of money can be sent to the U.S. Treasury at this address: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html One has to ask, if any super rich person really considered the U.S. Government a worthwhile investment, why are they donating to various charities instead of to the Treasury?

netmau5 15y ago
Most decent charities deliver far more per unit donated than the US government could ever wish to achieve. If you're interested in pure charity, you're not going to get much bang for your buck at the federal level.
- drblast 15y ago
  My point exactly. It's easy to consider who's paying what taxes and thinking about if that's fair, but the right question to ask is, "Is this a worthwhile investment?" Who pays what in taxes is really a diversion.
  - henryprecheur 15y ago
    > Who pays what in taxes is really a diversion. The "who" is actually pretty important. Tax the working man more, and you'll discourage working. Tax the rich, and he might move to another country. There are many ways to raise money for the state, and none is really "fair". There will always somebody who'll be screwed in some way.
- hans00 15y ago
  [citation needed]
  - olalonde 15y ago
    Using government data, Robert L. Woodson calculated that, on average, 70 cents of each dollar budgeted for government assistance goes not to the poor, but to the members of the welfare bureaucracy and others serving the poor. Michael Tanner cites regional studies supporting this 70/30 split. http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf

BrainScraps 15y ago

Reading this just makes me think of all of the lobbying dollars and campaign contributions that must have been paid by the super-rich to get these tax breaks. Am I the only one that feels some populist rage welling up when he hears how much money is wasted on campaigning for office and influencing people in office? Aren't there more worthy uses of wealth and scarce resources? And it just pains me that so many people think that they "have to play the game" to get things done by politicians. Non-profit organizations that use large percentages of their spend on "wining and dining" elected or appointed officials to try to make things beneficial things happen. Ugh.

ordinary 15y ago
The problem is not how much money is being 'donated'. The amount is fairly insignificant. The problem is the influence it buys and how that influence impacts the bigger picture. So yes, I agree with you that this kind of corruption is a big problem. But how much money goes around in that circuit is not what concerns me, personally.
dantheman 15y ago
They only do that because it pays off. If the government was more decentralized and controlled significantly less dollars the incentives wouldn't be there and it wouldn't happen. It's a structural problem that happens in any system. Where power is concentrated it becomes beneficial to influence it - the more concentrated the more that can be spent.
- rdtsc 15y ago
  I bet it wouldn't phase them a bit. They would create a watchdog professional organization (see US Chamber of Commerce) that makes sure local elections and appointments are influenced just as effectively as federal ones. This already happens in judge elections in many states. Certain "business-friendly" candidates are showered in campaign money, with the expectations that when certain cases are appealed those judges will end up making "the right choice".
  - 15y ago

yummyfajitas 15y ago

If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Anecdotes of Warren Buffet's office aside, in general the richest people pay the largest proportion of taxes. We already lean quite heavily on the top 1% - the top 1% actually pays more in taxes than the bottom 90%. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html A graph of the data in that article: http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png http://i.imgur.com/wa8uu.png In terms of taxation of the top 10%, the US is the most progressive country in the OECD. http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html Maybe the tax code needs tweaking at the level of the top 400, but it's very progressive up to the level of the top 1%.

dwolfson20 15y ago
>Maybe the tax code needs tweaking at the level of the top 400, but it's very progressive up to the level of the top 1%. If you read the whole piece, that's exactly what he says.
ikirill 15y ago
The richest pay the largest proportion of taxes because they earn so much. In the article, 400 hundred people make $90 billion, and it takes 3 million people working at $30,000 a year to collectively earn as much.
wpietri 15y ago
> If we want shared sacrifice, maybe we should ask people at the bottom to share as well. Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? I would be fascinated to hear what you'd suggest someone cut when they're earning ~10-15k/year. For those likewise unfamiliar, I recommend sci-fi author John Scalzi's "Being Poor": http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ Both the article and the comments are worth reading.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  > Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? yummyfajitas lives in Pune, India. Read through his comment history for comparisons of the rich in India to the poor in the US; it's eye-opening.

ck2 15y ago

The problem is getting low to middle income people to stop voting against themselves. Good luck with that, they all seem to think they are going to be billionaires someday so better keep those billionaire taxes low. Either that or by bribing the wealthy with low taxes they might only ship out half the jobs overseas instead of all of them. It's just dumbfounding. Election after election, over and over.

breck 15y ago
"The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre—what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. -Ulysses S. Grant People fighting or voting against their own self interest has gone on for a long time, sadly.
- ck2 15y ago
  I've come to the conclusion that the logic becomes "well if I can't have it, no-one will". People basically trying to take away assistance/help to others by trying to vote it away from everyone, since they somehow perceive themselves as better than others suffering on the lower rungs on society. This also explains why people try to vote away unions and benefits for teachers/schools, the very foundation of society, while they are okay with CEOs having multi-million annual stock bonuses while getting paid $1 to dodge taxes.
  - dwolfson20 15y ago
    People can't vote away multi-million dollar CEO bonuses, though.
    - ck2 15y ago
      They vote against "clawback" taxes on those bonuses, it's the same thing as saying the bonuses are okay.

karmafeeder 15y ago

As a freshly minted middle-class American, I disagree with Mr. Buffet's argument here. Though his eagerness to share the tax-burden is laudable, I hope that tax rates stay low for him. I would pay higher taxes to keep it that way. Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money.

revscat 15y ago
I don't trust capitalists with it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- olalonde 15y ago
  I can't help but wonder what the hell you are doing on a venture capital firm's website.
  - njharman 15y ago
    Learning about the enemy.
webXL 15y ago
It's as if wealth is zero-sum, and Mr. Buffet believes he and his ilk have taken some of it from the rest of the population. But he's not going to go without his generous slice of the pie if his friends aren't forced to go without theirs. But he and some of his friends are voluntarily giving their pie to worthwhile causes... as we speak! no force necessary! I would pay higher taxes to keep it that way. The sad reality is that the government is going to have to raise revenue somehow, and if that's the case, I'd prefer to raise it on those with a lot of passive income, who are less likely to move their assets out of the country. How you achieve that objective is beyond me.
kahawe 15y ago
> Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money. The only logical conclusion there would be moving out to a different country that offers equal or better living standards because the longer you stay, the more money you give to that government you do not trust.

aneth 15y ago

Could everyone make sure every Republican and Tea Partier they know reads this? Republican concerns are critical to this country, but the current incarnation is deeply harmful.

reader2000 15y ago
It's pointless: for them their belief trumps facts.

TheSkeptic 15y ago

Funny. Buffett certainly didn't mind a little coddling in 2008. He was arguably one of the largest individual beneficiaries of bailouts which shifted ungodly amounts of toxic debt from failed private institutions to taxpayers. See http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-betrayal/ http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/04/buffetts-b.... While it's now mighty generous of Buffett to invite the government to increase his taxes, he could spare us another (http://www.cnbc.com/id/40229527/Warren_Buffett_s_Letter_to_Uncle_Sam http://www.cnbc.com/id/40229527/Warren_Buffett_s_Letter_to_U...) nauseating and embarrassing New York Times op-ed and instead put his money where his mouth is. As another poster has noted, the Treasury will gladly cash Buffett's check (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm).

MikeCapone 15y ago
The whole financial system and everybody that depends on it was a beneficiary of the bailouts. If everything collapsed, everybody would have suffered. Buffett just happens to own a bigger slice of the market than almost anyone, so of course he benefited significantly. But singling him out, especially since he's stayed away from wall street's games and made extraordinary efforts to keep things above board for decades, is totally unfair.
- danenania 15y ago
  "The whole financial system and everybody that depends on it was a beneficiary of the bailouts. If everything collapsed, everybody would have suffered." A narrative convenient for powerful banks that was created by powerful banks and allied politicians. People have suffered and continue to suffer because of the crimes these institutions have committed. Propping up their corpses only helps the criminals who created the situation. Clearing out bad businesses so that new ones can take their place is a central pillar of capitalism. If you really believe a bunch of billionaires who claim the world's going to end if they lose their billions, well, you're gullible at best. Far from forestalling suffering, the continued operation of these entities and their influence on legislation perpetuates it. Their collapse is the best thing we could hope for, even if it causes short term turbulence.

andrewflnr 15y ago

Warren buffet pays about 17%, and the people in his office pay an average of 36%. So the solution, the way to restore fairness, is to raise taxes on him? I don't really think so. Maybe I'm a bit of a wingnut, but I find tax rates of about 30% disgusting simply on moral grounds, and I don't see why the discussion should go much further. Surely one of a government's prime constraints should be not screwing its citizens?

dwolfson20 15y ago
Without government to pay for the roads citizens drive to their businesses, and the infrastructure that gives them water and temperature moderation, and 1,000 other things that are essential to provide for functioning commerce, citizens wouldn't be making so much money as they do. And I'd wager that effect is worth a lot more than 30%.
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  The question is, does it require more than 30%?
  - dwolfson20 15y ago
    Maybe. It depends on what we as a society want our government to spend money on. Considering our current demands in this country (no cuts to entitlements), I think it requires at least that much.
  - bandushrew 15y ago
    surely you should have an answer to that question before you start claiming that 30% is screwing you?
    - orangecat 15y ago
      Exhibit A would be the lack of societal collapse during the 90s, when government spending per-capita and as a percentage of GDP was significantly lower than today.

aj700 15y ago

Taxing the money that moves - as it is earned - will only produce so much revenue. The rich need to be taxed, not beccause it will allow lots of lovely spending, because the gov will inevitably do a bad job of spending it. Though you could put it towards debt reduction first. You have to tax the money that doesn't move. The millions of unneeded unspent $ that the rich are sitting on, with a wealth tax. You may not even make the poor richer, but you will make the rich poorer. Good.

dwolfson20 15y ago
It's a nice intention, but how do you devise that mechanism? If I keep $10,000 in my savings account for 30 years, are you going to tax it every year?
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  The government does that already by printing more money. The more money printed the less valuable your $10K. Better to keep money on assets that do not devalue with inflation.
- wpietri 15y ago
  Yes, that's how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
mmorett 15y ago
> You may not even make the poor richer, but you will make the rich poorer. Good. "Unneeded, unspent money" is none of your business. It's not your money.
- hans00 15y ago
  Right. It's all of our money, because we all share the same society. Sorry, "it's mine, all mine" doesn't cut it outside an Ayn Rand fantasy novel or a Ron Paul forum.
  - 15y ago

hugh4life 15y ago

"But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate. " If you really want to see something get passed, you're better off putting the cutoffs at $5mil and $25mil(maybe even slightly higher). The $1mil cutoff sounds nice in a soundbite and it polls well, but it's not hard to find sympathetic faces(small businesses and large family farms) who would get caught up in that. His cutoffs would end up hurting the the "upper middle class" and the "lower rich" more than the "super rich". And if you want "shared sacrifice", you should be talking about a consumption tax. What this country needs most is a firm federal spending cap at 20% of GDP. There would be less opposition to raising taxes and balancing the budget if the measuring stick for spending wasn't tax revenues but the GDP.

pmorici 15y ago
Buffet is talking about "Taxable Income" meaning a small business or family farm would have to be making 1 Million in profits for it's owners before they would actually be effected by such an increase in rates. Consumption tax would likely put an undue burden on the poor because where as the rich invest and save a large portion of their income the poor spend close to 100% of what they make on things like food and housing.
- hugh4life 15y ago
  "Buffet is talking about "Taxable Income" meaning a small business or family farm would have to be making 1 Million in profits for it's owners before they would actually be effected by such an increase in rates." I understand perfectly... go ahead, put the cutoff at 1Mil and you're going to lose politically. "Consumption tax would likely put an undue burden on the poor" I don't care... I'm mocking the idea of "shared sacrifice"... the poor pay almost no taxes.
shangaslammi 15y ago
How on earth does consumption tax have anything to do with "shared sacrifice"? Consumption tax wrecks the purchasing power of the poor (who spend pretty much 100% of their income on taxed goods) and doesn't have any effect on the purchasing power of the super rich (who typically only spend a minor portion of their income on consumer goods).

carsongross 15y ago

Thanks for the advice, Warren. Can we have our Goldman bailout money back now? Yours, The U.S. Taxpayers

siglesias 15y ago
Most of it has been paid back or is on track to be paid back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

jeffool 15y ago

A couple of recent quotes of his: "I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection." http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/warren-buffett-i-could-end-the-deficit-in-5-minutes/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/warren-buffett-i-could-... Also, he's against having a debt ceiling. "All it does is slow down a process and divert people’s energy, causes people to posture. It doesn’t really make any sense," http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59335.html#ixzz1V4WmujAg http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59335.html#ixzz1V4...

chailatte 15y ago

The combined wealth of American's billionaires is only $1.5 trillion. [1] If we taxed them 100%, it would only pay off our budget deficit for one year. We still have around 54 trillion total debt to pay down. Not to mention 115 trillion unfunded liabilities. And which entrepreneurs would be stupid enough to work 14 hours a day and hire workers, knowing that the government will tax them 90%? They would all flee the country. We have too much debt, period. From military, medicare, and social security spending. Problem is, if we reduce any one of these, either our soldiers returns home broke and angry, or the seniors die of starvation/disease. (35% of Americans already over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone. Median retirement savings of households over the age of 65 is less than $45,000). Tough choice. But it looks like the current politicians aren't going to make a decision, but let Bernanke print dollars until hyperinflation arrives. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/10/140943.html http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/10/140943.html

reader2000 15y ago
Stop fabricating numbers. The US National debt is about $14.5 trillion, not anywhere close to 54 trillion. Btw, the Bush tax cuts — costing $1.8 trillion from 2002 to 2009 — are a big reason we got into this deep hole. Buffet: I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
- webXL 15y ago
  Buffet who should know better: correlation doesn't imply causation
- swolchok 15y ago
  Had you checked the first google result for United States debt, you would have found where the confusion is coming from: the national debt is 14.5 trillion, and the total debt is 54 trillion (Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/). I'm guessing "total debt" according to the debt clock includes things like state governments and private citizens, although Wikipedia claims that the 14.5 trillion figure is total debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt).

VT_Hokie 15y ago

If Warren feels so guilty, then he should write a check to the US Treasury for his entire net worth.

tomjen3 15y ago

If Buffet finds it so wrong that he pays so little tax, I am sure the IRS wouldn't mind if he paid more. Personally I would adjust Social Security to the expected life time (and re-adjust it every year); get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; half the army (you got nukes, you don't need that big an Army to defend yourself) and stop the war on drugs.

scottjad 15y ago

Warren is omitting very crucial information and knowingly deceiving most people. He's pretending he doesn't pay very many taxes, but he does, he just pays different taxes. In this article he mentions capital gains, income, and payroll taxes but does not mention corporate income taxes. Corporate income taxes are taxes on the owners of corporations. I don't know exactly how much he paid, but some quick math I'd guess he alone paid 1.6 billion last year in corporate income taxes. (Berkshire paid 5.6 billion, Warren's worth 53 billion, Berkshire 178 billion, giving Warren 29% ownership, if you have better numbers feel free to share). So he mentions 6 million dollars in taxes but omits 1.6 billion from the discussion.

hypersoar 15y ago
It's hardly fair to Berkshire Hathaway's income as part of Buffet's personal income. Unlike his own, its money is not his to spend however he likes.
- scottjad 15y ago
  If Warren owned 100% of Berkshire would you still think it's unfair to consider what Berkshire pays in taxes a tax on Warren? Then why is it not fair to consider it on a percentage basis like I have? The owners of corporations are the people being taxed by corporate income taxes, since without these taxes, that money would be theirs to spend as they wish, either by investing in their business or taking it out by paying dividends.
DenisM 15y ago
Corporate income taxes are taxes on the owners of corporations. Well, no.
- scottjad 15y ago
  Well, thank you for your informative response. Without a corporate income tax owners can withdraw the incomes minus dividend taxes. With corporate income tax they can withdraw income minus corporate income tax minus dividend taxes. How can you say they're not the ones paying the tax when the money could go directly in their pockets if not for the tax?

shmulkey18 15y ago

This guy kills me. He's more than welcome to write a big check to the US government. Until he does, you'll all forgive me when I consider him somewhat less than sincere in his desire to see more of his income go to the IRS.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

Buffet isn't this economically illiterate. The super rich must wish to hose the only sort of rich.

orijing 15y ago

All of the comments here attacking Warren Buffett's authenticity, suggesting that he should put his money where his mouth is and write the Treasury a big fat check, are missing the whole point. Services provided by the government are public goods. It's blindingly obvious that a single person cannot pay for those public goods. Just Buffett's own contributions, no matter how much he donates, will not be enough to solve our budget issue. It's called shared sacrifice because it's meaningless unless everyone participates. It's like the neighborhood park (i.e. medicare/social security): Everyone wants one, but nobody wants to pay for it. In steps the neighborhood's rich kid (Buffett), who suggests that all the rich kids pitch in to pay for the park. If that happened, everyone would be made better off, but one kid alone isn't enough. This is a very canonical problem of public services provisioning and funding. It's completely naive to sit back and suggest Buffett tackle the issue himself, because we all know that's ridiculous. Open your eyes. The problem is not Buffett's to solve. But he recognizes that there is a problem. Apologies for the harsh tone, but it baffles me how members of Hacker News can think so naively. The attacks on Buffett are utterly unfair and unjustified. We should all have an open mind and try to understand the proposal.

cromulent 15y ago
Agreed. He's not trying to "make a donation", he's saying that everyone should share the burden - including himself and people like him. It's not just that the rich kids should pay for the park, it's that everyone but the rich kids are being asked to pay some extra.
- gaius 15y ago
  Does Mr Buffett employ an accountant to do his taxes? Does said accountant employ any tax avoidance strategies?
  - epscylonb 15y ago
    Wouldn't you if you had tons of money?, especially if all the other "rich kids" are doing the same?. If you expect people to always do the altruistic thing then be prepared for a life full of disappointment. The best you can do is try to shape peoples behavior. Personally I would prefer a flat percentage rate of tax with an exception for very low incomes where it just isn't worth the governments time trying to collect it. This would probably raise most peoples tax and lower rich peoples tax but I believe it is "fairer" for everybody to pay the same fixed proportion of their income. At the same time though I would simplify business taxes as well, get rid of loopholes, stop companies that do business in a country off shoring their profits. It is insane that some companies view their accounting departments as profit centers. Flat tax economies boom, and they are progressive in the sense that there is no penalty for trying to earn more money.

jhgjhg 15y ago

Who pays income taxes? The rich mostly. http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

genieyclo 15y ago

Politics is rearing its ugly head again on HN. Flagged.

jquery 15y ago

Notice that Warren Buffett is asking for tax increases on those who make more than $1M and $10M respectively. I'm fine with this. He seems to "get", unlike so many Democrats, that $250k/year is not rich. Where I get nervous is all the Democrats who seem to think that there is no difference between $250k and $1M/year and up. I get kind of ill seeing obscenely wealthy Democrats in Congress, almost all making MUCH more $250k, trying to lump my household in with the rich. I'm willing to pay more, but not if these wealthy Democrats won't create a distinction between $250k/year, $1M/year, and $10+M/year.

eftpotrm 15y ago
While I agree there's a big distinction between someone earning $250k/year and $10m/year, are you aware that if your family is earning that much then you're earning over eight times the median household income?
- callmeed 15y ago
  You're wrong. First, the median income in the US is now at or slightly above $50K per year. Second, assuming earned income (which is fair even for $250k earners), a median income household will be in either a 15% or 25% tax bracket (depending on if married). A $250k household will be in a 33% tax bracket.
  - eftpotrm 15y ago
    My statistic was showing $31k, but if we say $50k, fine - it's now merely five times the median, not eight. That's still a comfortable situation by almost anyone's standards. Now, if your $50k household is in a 25% tax bracket, they're paying $12.5k so leaving a net income of $37.5k. Your $250k household at 33% are paying $83k, net income $167k, 4.4 times the net income of the $50k household. So what was your point exactly?
callmeed 15y ago
Agree completely. I think the problem is that $250K is around that "top 1%" mark. It's a convenient demarcation line and makes for a smooth soundbite. What many don't get is that the bottom of the top 1% includes doctors, attorneys, and entrepreneurs.

davidw 15y ago

Off topic: most articles about politics.

pakitan 15y ago

I'm a huge fan of Warren Buffet but in this case I think the math just doesn't seem right. I don't have the exact numbers, I took data from wikipedia and the NYT article, so, please, let me know if my math is way off. From the article, there are about 200,000 people with income of $1M+. Let's make it $5M per person. That's 1 trillion USD combined income. The rest of the taxpayers seem to be about 200,000,000 with an average income of about $25,000. Combined income = 5 trillion. So, if they reduce the tax of the bottom group with 2%, as Mr. Buffet suggests, the tax of the upper bracket has to be hiked with 10% just to compensate. And if we add another 10%, just for the fun of it, that's 100 billion taken from the rich but it's still a measly part of the budget (around 3 trillion) not to mention the debt (15 trillion). And don't forget that people with 1M+ income have a vast number of legal and semi-legal tricks at their disposal to reduce their tax rate. The moment you increase the tax too much, you start seeing money flowing to offshore locations. So, while "tax the rich more" and "let them share the burden" are great feel-good slogans, I don't think they offer any practical solution for the huge USA deficits.

benjoffe 15y ago
Your big assumption there that those 200,000 people with income of $1M+ have an average of $5M per person is where your logic fails. This source: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=a7jenngfc4um7_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=personal_income#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=personal_income&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=a7jenngfc4um7_&#... shows the US total personal income for 2010 being over 12.5 trillion, your two groups only add up to 6 trillion.
- pakitan 15y ago
  Well, given some kind of power law distribution, I don't think the $5M are that far off. In fact, this suggests that my guess may have been on the higher end: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in... It says average income for top 0.1% is $3M and those 200,000 are exactly the top 0.1%. I'm not sure where the huge discrepancy comes from, when it comes to the total personal income stats you posted and I hope someone can clear this up.

rdl 15y ago

The really low hanging fruit, IMO, to raise tax revenue without "raising taxes" (in the sense of raising tax rates) is to reclassify carried interest as ordinary income. That, combined with a few other similar changes (mortgage interest deduction, maybe funding ssi and medicaid separately from old age and medicare) and huge cuts in defense (due to ending 1-4 of the wars), seems like it would be fairly effective. What I'd like to see is a flat income tax for ordinary and dividend/capital gains at 25-35% for all income, huge cuts in spending, combined with a single refundable tax credit set at ~subsistence income, universally applied. However, that's a much bigger change and pretty unlikely to happen.

scottjad 15y ago

Warren's real federal tax rate on 99% of his income: 59% A portfolio company makes $1 in income. Without any taxes, Warren could put $1 in his pocket if he wished. Instead the portfolio company (Wells Fargo) pays 33% taxes, then the holding company (Berkshire) pays 29% taxes, then Warren pays 15% dividend taxes. In the end it's 59%, all of which is really truly a tax on Warren once the smoke and mirrors go away. (- 1 (* 1 0.67 0.71 0.85)) => 0.595655 So right now 7 out of 12 months of his income is taken by the federal government, and he thinks they should take more! Maybe 9 out of 12 months, where ideally (in his mind) the state government would then come in and take the rest.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Once I realized that you could take all the money from the rich, stop all defense spending, and still have a massive budget problem? These sorts of things stopped being an issue for me. Seriously folks, it's a red herring, an issue created to make sure that one party has something to fight the other party over. If you want to sack the rich, have at it. Just don't pretend that by taking that position you are doing anything at all for the national treasury. Or poor folks, for that matter. In the larger picture, many technologists view the state as something of the past. Tens of thousands of people make their money simply because computers are hooked to each other over wires. It has very little to do with national budgets or policy (yes, you can throw out a bunch of silly nonsense about national broadband policies and such, but let's get real: this economic activity takes place in all sorts of various scenarios.) So if you are the type to sit around pining away your day, thinking about all those super-rich folks and how good they have it, I'm sure this will be a fun article for you. If, however, you are concerned with public policy -- and the fact that in the US, at least, the majority of people do not even pay an income tax, yet vote on the rates for the rich minorities (gee, wonder how that will turn out?) then this is all so much posturing. I don't feel a need to slam Buffett. He's a patriotic citizen who means well. Smarter guy than me in a lot of areas. I'm just not sure that this article has anywhere near enough merit to have 500+ points on HN. It offers no solutions, only rehashed populist tripe. If you want to set the income tax at 95% of all money made over a million bucks? Have at it. It's not important.

deleted 15y ago
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ender7 15y ago
Please supply a source for your claim in your first sentence.
- travisp 15y ago
  The entire net worth (not income) of all billionaires in the United States may be about $1.3 trillion[1]. Therefore, if you took all of the money currently held from all U.S. billionaires, you would decrease the national debt by about 10%, or cover the deficit for just one year. A high (say, 90%) income tax rate would presumably bring in even less. 1 - http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/interesting-numbers-forbes-rich-list_446045.html http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/interesting-number...

cfontes 15y ago

Very well pointed, it takes a lot of altruism to say that when you are the potential target. I read Snowball and like this man actions and thoughts. He is really a very unique kind of person, some might argue that he did some things to benefit himself in the past, But I disagree and think that the world would be a better place if more man like this were in charge of the power over civilization.

bmahmood 15y ago

Majority of the comments seem to be discussing the merits / morality of taxation, rather than Buffet's central points. Entertaining the discussion on the merits of taxation, I've found John Rawls' Justice as Fairness to be especially enlightening. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_as_Fairness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_as_Fairness) Essentially, a just society is one in which decisions are made to benefit the worst-off in society. Given a majority of the factors that contribute to individual success are outside our control (what family you were born into, what neighborhood you lived in, what school you went to, etc), a just society would in turn be one which compensates for such naturally-occurring inequalities. He provides a well-thought out argument for how progressive taxation is a necessary (but certainly not sufficient) lever to do so. Now in practice, it is true that our government has been terribly inefficient in managing tax revenue and creating public goods. But that shouldn't discount the role government can play. Realizing the potential reach and role of government, the goal shouldn't be to neuter it, but to make it more efficient. On Buffet's central points, I find them hard to argue with. 1) Lower taxes on the rich in the last 10 years have been neither necessary nor sufficient for economic growth or job creation, especially in light of the 20 years before that. 2) The front-end drivers for entrepreneurs, VCs, and angels have more to do with product creation, addressing a market need, and simply playing the game. Money is of course a big part in too, but tax cuts only play a back-end behavioral incentive- they affect the NPV of behavior that was already in play. 3) Just because the actual tax revenue on the rich may not put a huge dent on the deficit (as some comments seem to imply), the point is that the billions in tax revenue it would raise could still stave of cuts to programs that the poor and middle class depend on. (And larger food for thought on the role of tax cuts, and how they've contributed to the deficit http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-chart-that-should-accompany-every-discussion-of-deficits/238786/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-char...)

zackattack 15y ago

Taxation is subject to marketplace effects. I've learned something from Mr. Buffet.