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Warren Buffett Calls Republicans’ Bluff on Taxes
Billionaire Warren Buffett is a thorn in the side of Republicans. This pillar of the capitalist community and CEO of the corporate conglomerate Berkshire Hathway, continues to press Congress to raise taxes wealthy people like him. When congressional Republicans answered him by proposing a voluntary check-off box on tax-filing forms for people who want to pay more taxes, Buffet threw down a gauntlet. He’d happily match the voluntary tax contributions made by GOP lawmakers, he said — and he’d even triple-match those made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Speaking with Time magazine’s Rana Foroohar, Buffett said (with a chuckle, according to the reporter):
It restores my faith in human nature to think that there are people who have been around Washington all this time and are not yet so cynical as to think that [the deficit] can’t be solved by voluntary contributions.
Buffet made waves in August when, in a New York Times op-ed piece, he repeated his complaint that his secretary paid a much higher tax rate than he did. Buffett is worth $45 billion. (For the record, the senate majority leader is worth a mere $10 million.)
McConnell spokesperson Don Stewart responded to Time with a call for President Barack Obama, congressional Democrats and members of the Democratic National Committee to voluntarily pay extra taxes.
In a 2010 article in Fortune, Buffet wrote:
I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
That’s one billionaire who thinks he should pay more than 17 percent of his adjusted net income — the rate he currently pays — to the U.S. Treasury. He’s convinced a few others already, but not, apparently, the Republicans in Congress.
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13 Comments
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Warren is a liar . He takes a 100 thousand salary. Most of his income is from capital gains that are taxed at a 15 % rate. Most of his money is in his stock in Berkshire Hathaway.
The fact that Warren takes only $100K in salary and that the bulk of his income comes from capitol gains and qualified dividends both taxed at 15% is precisely why he pays just a bit over 15% in income taxes.
That is Warren’s point!
That does not make him a liar. Only a fool would think that.
Yeah well at least his lies haven’t caused the death of 4,000 plus people and didn’t crash the nation’s economy. How exactly does calling Mr. Buffet a liar benefit you or your argument (whatever that is)? At least he’s not a miserable greedy union busting Koch brother.
Gotta love Warren. He calls ‘em s he sees ‘em, and he has great eyesight. If the Repubs lobbied for Buffett to pay more taxes through Berkshire, I doubt he would complain, so long as other wealthy people also paid the same higher and fairer rate. Keep callin ‘em out Warren. The Bush tax cuts need to be rescinded yesterday, for the good of the country.
Sounds to me like Warren is playing a schoolyard game. If he was serious he’d dare them to match his percentage of extra taxes, not say he’d match theirs. I’ll do it twice if you do it once is a challenge only made when you know it won’t be taken.
I disagree with you entirely on your remedy, chlyn001. Since the Bush family on their side of the family is the 2nd wealthiest family in the world, I think the Bush family should REPAY FROM THEIR OWN FUNDS the tax cuts they conspired to inflict upon our nation. But both Bush’s should go to prison for starting illegal wars and conducting illegal espionage against other countries who had no ability to defend themselves against our military-intelligence system of overthrowing other nations’ political systems and for our direct implication in causing the deaths of millions of innocent civilians due to our economic conspiracies to imprison other societies in our exploitive commercial tyrannies.
Gotta love Warren. He calls ‘em as he sees ‘em, and he has great eyesight. If the Repubs lobbied for Buffett to pay more taxes through Berkshire, I doubt he would complain, so long as other wealthy people also paid the same higher and fairer rate. Keep callin ‘em out Warren. The Bush tax cuts need to be rescinded yesterday, for the good of the country.
I sure hope that labor is not going to fall for the steamy stuff coming out of Obama and the Dems. The fact is that when it comes right down to it there is little to no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. It is time for a real change and an end to all the wars of aggression.
You entirely said it all correctly, 4Peace.
You are all fools! As the taxes go up, social mobility goes down. He’s protecting his own (the 1%), and you all fell for it. Hook, line and sinker!
Hey Kompisboy! Your full of it! Taxes have gone down in this country for the rich for 30 years as inequality has gone on afterburner, except in the European Socialist Bogeymen Countries. They have higher social mobility, more education and better Health care with better outcomes while we are 27th. We’re number one! We’re number one AT WEAPONS SYSTEMS AND DEFENSE SPENDING!
To those who say there is no difference between the democrats and the republicans – I strongly disagree. We have some democrats who vote with the right wing most os the time and they are democrats in name only – about 170 to 190 democrats vote with labor nearly 100 percent of the time. As for the wars – some democrats voted for the war based on the lies of our president and vice president at the time. At no time in our nations history has a president stood before the people and intentionally lied as Bush lied and there needs to be a level of trust in our leaders – however Bush showed that he can not be trusted as our leader – What worries me is that so many Americans voted for him a second time despite the fact he lied to everyone.
We made great progress in our country since the end of WWII because of the democrats. What we need to do is get corporate control of congress eliminated. To say that ALL democrats are bad is counterproductive. We need to build on what we have and influence people to make the correct choice when they vote.
Doer do — talkers talk. I went to prison because I fought for my union and the Cause I believed in. I didn’t say to my union brothers “I”ll fight if you fight first.” If Buffet believed in his “cause” then he would pay more in taxes — he would lead, s I did. Buffet is a talker, not a doer.