Buffett:Trickle-Down Theory Failed!
Warren Buffett: I 'Should Be Paying A Lot More In Taxes'
WASHINGTON -- Billionaire Warren Buffett rebutted claims that the Obama administration is unjustly hurting business orders with high taxes by saying that in fact, the wealthy have never had it so good.
"I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in a clip played on "This Week" on Sunday.
When Amanpour pointed to critics' claims that the very wealthy need tax cuts to spur business and capitalism, Buffett replied, "The rich are always going to say that, you know, 'Just give us more money, and we'll go out and spend more, and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.' But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.
On Tuesday, Buffett wrote a New York Times op-ed in the form of a letter to "Uncle Sam," thanking him for saving the U.S. economy:
When the crisis struck, I felt you would understand the role you had to play. But you've never been known for speed, and in a meltdown minutes matter. I worried whether the barrage of shattering surprises would disorient you. You would have to improvise solutions on the run, stretch legal boundaries and avoid slowdowns, like Congressional hearings and studies. You would also need to get turf-conscious departments to work together in mounting your counterattack. The challenge was huge, and many people thought you were not up to it.
Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic -- and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective.
Buffett isn't the only billionaire who has argued for higher taxes. Both Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his father, Bill Gates, Sr., recently came out in support of a Washington state measure to "create a 5 percent tax rate on annual income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples, and a 9 percent tax rate on income that tops $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples."
Buffett has spoken out in the past about taxes for the wealthy, telling the Senate Finance Committee in 2007 that the estate tax should not be repealed. "I think we need to...take a little more out of the hides of guys like me," Buffett testified.
The Republicans Can't Pray a Lie When It Comes To Tax Breaks for the Super Wealthy -
But They Sure are Trying.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG FOR TRUTHOUT BY MARK KARLIN
You can't pray a lie, Mark Twain wrote. But the smugly pious and hypocritical Republicans on the Hill are sure trying when it comes to tax cuts.
Even though the GOP in both houses won't support extending unemployment insurance to millions of Americans - a move that actually helps create more jobs because it puts dollars directly into consumer spending - they are fanatically committed to what Rachel Maddow calls a "bonus" tax cut for the wealthy.
And an essential part of the argument that the Republicans are making is a flat-out lie. They are claiming that the rich will be deprived of all extended tax cut benefits. As a Truthout editor pointed out to me, the super wealthy will still get a tax cut if the proposed Obama breaks for the middle class continue because of the way that our tax system is structured.
That is because we are taxed on a tiered level in the US: the rates of taxation increase at each level of income earned above each taxable threshold reached. In short, if a rich person earns $1 million, their first $250,000 of income would be taxed at the same rate - all other deductions being equal - as someone who earns $250,000 in total.
So, the GOP leadership who voted against the Obama plan for "middle-class" tax cuts in the House on December 2, voted against tax cuts for the wealthy, too, because Americans of all incomes would benefit from them.
In fact, the Center on Policy Budget and Priorities found, "High-income people benefit significantly from the 'middle-class' tax cuts. They will continue to receive substantial tax cuts if Congress extends the middle-class tax cuts while allowing the high-income tax cuts to expire on schedule at the end of this year. Indeed, if policymakers follow this route, people making more than $1 million will receive more than five times the tax cut benefit, in dollar terms, as a middle-class family making $50,000 to $75,000."
The bottom line, which the Democrats aren't getting out loudly enough, is that the Republicans just voted against a tax cut for all Americans.
The GOP is getting away with a whopper of a lie, which the media is generally echoing. No, the Republicans can't pray a lie; but they sure can economically damage Americans and our precarious financial situation as a nation.
