Thread: Stop coddling the super-rich, Warren Buffett says

Stop coddling the super-rich, Warren Buffett says

Warren Buffett has urged U.S. lawmakers to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments.

updated 7 minutes ago

Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers Monday to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments.

"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," The 80-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times.

Buffett, one of the world's richest men and chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc , said his federal tax bill last year 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," he said.
Vote: Is Congress coddling the super-rich, like Buffett says?
Lawmakers engaged in a partisan battle over spending and taxes for more than three months before agreeing on August 2 to raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default.

"Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country's fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness," Buffett said.
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Buffett said higher taxes for the rich will not discourage investment.

"I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain," he said

"People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44143776/ns ... l_finance/

He knows what to do but the republicans dont want to.They keep calling it a tax raise and trying to get the people to believe in it but its not true it a way to get the rich to pay what their suspose to and not use tax breaks loop holes and things to get out of not paying their fair share that not a raise in taxes like republicans want you to believe it is.

This guy needs to SHUT UP!
Hey Buffet... NOBODY is stopping YOU from opening your swollen checkbook and writting a check to the IRS!!!!!
So for Gods Sake, PAY WHATEVER YOU WANT!

If all of the super rich would pay their fair share most of the budget deficit problems would be taken care of.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

If all of the super rich would pay their fair share most of the budget deficit problems would be taken care of.

You got it but the republicans dont.

related article.

Buffett Urges U.S. to Raise Taxes on ‘Coddled’ Billionaires to Cut Deficit

Q
By Michael Heath
Aug 15, 2011 1:11 AM ETMon Aug 15 05:11:25 GMT 2011


Buffett Urges U.S. to Raise Taxes on ‘Coddled’ Billionaires


Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

Warren Buffett said that for those making more than $1 million -- there were 236,883 such households in 2009 -- he would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including dividends and capital gains.

Warren Buffett said that for those making more than $1 million -- there were 236,883 such households in 2009 -- he would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including dividends and capital gains. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg





Play Video
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73959084/

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett urged Congress to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest individuals to help cut the U.S. budget deficit, saying it won’t inhibit investment or job growth. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,â€

I agree.

The super rich have to pay more and close the loopholes.

First of all...Warren Buffett will profit highly if taxes are raised he is probably salivating at the mouth while he is speaking. He makes money from the tax free investments for his clients...via insurance, municipal bonds etc. His company and other investment companies profits will sky rocket. (I just heard this on Fox Business News this morning it was on Varney)

If he really felt that way he should be mentioning closing the loop holes the rich use these are loop holes that most people couldn't even dream of. How come no one is talking about that.

C.N.N. Quick vote

Do you agree with Warren Buffett that the super-rich should pay more taxes?

Yes
86%
22190

No
14%
3716

Total votes: 25906

www.cnn.com

Buffett is right: Raise taxes on the wealthy

By William G. Gale, Special to CNN
August 16, 2011 10:06 a.m. EDT

Editor's note: William G. Gale is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

(CNN) -- In Sunday's New York Times, Warren Buffett discusses the need to raise taxes on the wealthy. He's absolutely right. Tax increases, in general -- as well as tax increases on the wealthiest households, in particular -- need to be a part of the solution.

Past major budget agreements, such as the 1983 Social Security reforms and the 1990 and 1993 budget deals, ultimately included both revenue increases and spending cuts. It's not hard to see why: Cutting deficits from both sides of the budget provides a sense of fairness, shared sacrifice and political equilibrium.

Also, raising taxes to pay for current spending has proved more effective at restraining spending than allowing the government to finance its outlays with deficits. Every time we have tried to cut spending by restraining taxes, we have failed. In the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan and in the past decade under President George W. Bush, taxes fell, but spending rose. The only time in the past 30 years when spending fell was in the 1990s, under President Bill Clinton, when taxes were also raised.

Even the massive tax increases during and after World War II -- amounting to a permanent rise of 10% to 15% of gross domestic product -- and the much smaller tax increases in 1990 and 1993 did no discernible damage to U.S. economic growth.

If we are going to raise taxes as part of the fiscal solution, the tax burden on high-income, high-wealth households needs to rise. The recently enacted debt deal contains only spending cuts and has little or no impact on high-income households. Rather, it puts the entire burden of closing the fiscal gap on low- and middle-income households. High-income households should not be exempted from helping resolve the nation's fiscal problem.

Gruener on Buffett's call to raise taxes
Households in the top 1% of the distribution can afford to contribute. They have done enormously well during the past 30-plus years. In 1979, their income accounted for 10% of total income. According to the most recent data (from 2008), their share of total household income more than doubled to 21%. In contrast, real income for middle-class workers has remained roughly constant over the same time frame.

There are, of course, better and worse ways to raise taxes. A general goal would be to broaden the tax base -- reduce the use of specialized credits, deductions, loopholes and so on -- and minimize the extent to which tax rates need to rise.

One good place to start? High-income households: Limit the rate at which itemized deductions can occur to 28%. This would affect only households in the highest income ranges, it would not raise their official marginal tax rate, and it would raise $293 billion over the next decade, relative to how much money would be raised according to current law, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This would be a small move in the right direction.

Of course, sticking to current law revenues -- that is, either not extending the Bush tax cuts after their scheduled expiration date of 2012 or paying for any extension with a reduction in various tax expenditures -- is even more important. Extending the Bush tax cuts would reduce revenues by about $2.5 trillion over the next decade, relative to current law. Counting net interest savings, it would cost $3 trillion. Letting the cuts expire could actually help economic growth since the lower deficits would more than offset the effect of slightly lower marginal tax rates, and it would be progressive. That would be a big move in the right direction.

Eventually, the nation will need to deal with the ballooning costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security for an aging population. Even if substantial cuts are made to these programs, the combination of a greatly expanded elderly population and higher federal net interest payments than in the past (because of the higher public debt/GDP ratio) will create a need for additional revenues. There are good options there as well, including a value-added tax -- the equivalent of a national consumption tax and a feature of the tax system of every industrialized country except the U.S. -- and higher energy taxes, to promote a cleaner environment as well as raise revenues.

None of this means that the U.S. needs to move to European taxation levels. But between the depleted tax revenues we raise now -- the lowest share of the economy in six decades -- and the high taxes experienced in European countries, there is plenty of room to raise revenues in an economically sound manner to support a reasonable level of government.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of William G. Gale.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/15/g ... hpt=hp_bn9