There is a huge difference between top income earners and the wealthy. People like Buffett don't pay high taxes because they already have their wealth and the big incoming money is in the form of dividends, not income. So there is no skin off of his nose if somebody trying come up behind him (a.k.a. – “The Competition”) gets the crap taxed out of them.

Warren Buffett's salary from Berkshire Hathaway is only $100,000/year. So, by Obama's $250,000 standard, Buffett isn't one of the rich that taxes are going to see their taxes raised. I think it is very disingenuous for him to make statements like this. Now if he comes out and says dividends and capital gains should be taxed more heavily, which I oppose, then at least he looks more credible.

i don't hate the rich. i hate our government for making them richer at the point the every else becomes poorer. like this $700M of tax money going right to the rich.

He'll never do that with HIS money, of course. Like soros' money that goes to buying control of that big pot he wants to collect from everyone else.

"and the rich 1%... if unemploying 50,000 of us would make their profits go up, they would do it in a heartbeat."

T-shirt, I don't get you. You've demonstrated here and on other posts your disdain for the rich and your indifference/satisfaction to their potential loss of money. By what reasoning can you then turn around and blame them for not caring about you?

It's just generally not good business practice to walk up to someone with one hand held out and the other hand flipping them off.

and by the way... if I ran a business and 50,000 of my employees were doing so poorly that I was losing money by continuing to employ them, then yeah! They'd be gone in a heartbeat, if nothing else, for the sake of my company and the other thousands of employees that were being productive.

Most of our country's problems would be solved if economics was emphasized in schools. It is simply not possible to do good with other people's money.

I once read something along the lines of "First 100 Days in Office" which was a list of conservative / libertarian actions (day 1 - cut taxes, day 2 - abolish department of education, day 3 - eliminate funding for the NEA, etc.).

I thought it was written by Boortz ... not sure.

Anyone have a clue?

Thanks,
James

Tell Buffet he's perfectly welcome to donate his entire fortune to the federal government. No one is stopping him. No? Why not? He wants to donate other people's money, why not his first?

Neal, last time I checked, the tax breaks that these rich people take are totally voluntary. No one makes them deduct their mortgage interest, business losses, etc. So if they think they are not taxed enough, they should just tell their accounts "no deductions". Leave the rest of us to ours.

Life is not fair. Just Make the highly profitable pay more and leave this fair crap out of it.
Businesses don't understand that the gov't is only trying to level the playing field because of the exploitation. They can't stand not being able to keep all of the money that they think is theirs. When the gov't takes some back, its all whine whine this and whine whine that.

When an employer keeps all the profit and doesn't give the employees any bonus or a raise that's not fair either but the employer doesnt want to hear about whats fair, come on. Its all his money and he doesn't need the employee that helped to make that money.

Like wise, the state doesn't need you or your business. You are just lucky to be here (right?). All the money and the land belongs to the state. The gov't can take YOU, your money and your land (all gov'ts can do this). So none of this fair crap please. If we want you to pay more you're going to no matter how much you whine about "its not fair" (using boortz' whiney voice).

If the people or the businesses don't like it, they are _free_ to go somewhere else with their money, nobody is stopping them (seriously), but I suspect that they'll be back because there is still plenty of profit to be made here. I also suspect they'll keep whining about how much they care about the stock holders (what a joke). Because its all about the stock holders. Its not about those big bonuses paid to the top levels of management.

If the state wants your money the state is going to get its money. Go whine somewhere else please. If you don't like it here then try another country. lets just see how long they put up with you.

Take all the taxes out of Buffet, Gates, etc. and none of the rest of us will ever have to pay taxes again!!!

You know what would happen? Other than the crash and burn, the libs would still bad mouth the rich.

When it comes to money and wealth, Warren Buffett is a smart man. When he indicates that he is paying less tax than his employees, then perhaps he's implying that there are too many loopholes that the rich can use to escape paying their fair share of taxes. His political views are irrelevant. He knows how to make money a lot better than most of us.

Warren believes in paying his fair share of taxes so much that he is giving most of his accumulated wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation when he dies.

Taxes are for the little people.

I hope the democrats heed Mr. Buffet's advice and try to raise taxes even more, on the 'rich', and especially on small business owners. I really do. It's going to be fun watching all those faces stretch into panic, then sink into despair, on CNN next November. Yeah....you democrat congress jerkoffs...GO FOR IT. RAISE TAXES! MUWAHAHAHA...

Like most limo liberals out there, Mr. Buffet is happy to raise the taxes on his (and everyone else's) current earnings. Hey - a 60% tax bill on $235MM in annual profits still leaves him with $94MM to live on. (Just numbers - too lazy to look up the real numbers on him last year.) Making ends meet in Omaha, NE ought to be doable on that kind of take-home salary.

Here's a plan to get us far closer to your goal of paying your fair share, Mr Buffet. How about having the government tax the holdings of any family or person with a net value of over $100MM at 90%? We can dispense with the niceties of S-corps, stock holdings, long term investments, off-shore accounts and the like, you know you have it, so why be coy about it? Think of all the money your holdings alone could provide to feed the leviathan, Mr. Buffet!

As an aside, I am not aware of any law preventing Mr. Buffet from sending in a check to the treasury to help "pay his fair share". You should do so immediately to assuage your conscience.

By the way Missouri, DUMP THAT IDIOT you have as a Senator. It is embarrassing to you.

The usual tactic of the ultra liberal - equate high income with "wealth." They are not the same, regardless of what the truly rich are willing to say. One way to tell if someone is truly wealthy - they don't really care how much they pay in income taxes because they have cash to burn. But try to tax the capital (i.e., the accumulated wealth) and they'd sing a different tune.

Some of the Hollywood Leftists could help out with this.

[Hint, I know the answer, but I wanted to ask anyways]