Warren Buffet...says Stop Coddling the Rich...GFB

Renana here Y'all. That's Tulsa, Oklahoma talk. I did not expect to work this hard in my first week. Are there any kitten labor laws?

Well the famous billionaire, investor, and all around good guy Warren Buffet has had far too many Cherry Cokes. He recently pronounced that mega-rich have been paying to little in taxes "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."


In a recent Op Ed piece in the NYT Warren opines statements such as: 

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. 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.

The gist of all this is that the personal income tax on the super rich should be increased to be equitable to that on the less rich, implying that the goal is to get everyone to pay their fair share. Of course this is a subjective pursuit and does not address the problem of what the money is being spent on is not giving a return. Items like education, infrastructure, less regulations, energy, continue to be be unfulfilling. Sorry Warren before I turn the post over to the Sharks let me say in closing "shared sacrifice", GFB.

Thanks Renana,

Following up the WSJ article, Would Taxing the Super-Rich Raise Much Revenue? points out that we have a debt problem so large that the rich's money will not make a noticeable dent.

The Patriotic Millionaires, a group advocating the repeal of the Bush tax cuts on tax filers making $1 million or more a year, estimated that their plan would raise $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years. That sounds like a lot.


But only $100 billion of that is projected savings from lower government debt costs. So the tax would actually raise $40 billion to $50 billion a year: equal to about 3% of the annual federal deficit.

This is of course smoke and mirrors; what does this $50B matter to an annual deficit of $1.5T? Sharky&Sharky affirm nothing. Going further what does $50B mean to the unfunded liabilities of $60 to $70 trillion in the decades in the future. Less than nothing.

However all of the above misses the point. The point is maximizing liberty and whenever government gets bigger i.e. gets more money it takes on activities that extends it controls over its citizens. This Warren is the problem. The government should pay its debts and live within its means and not get more money from any of its citizens.