“OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.” (NY Times – Warren Buffett)There’s an easy solution to that one!
Expropriate the property of Buffett and his fellow billionaires, put guns in their hands and send them to Afghanistan. Turn their property over to the returning working class soldiers and their families. Problem solved.
But seriously, he raises some valid criticisms of our tax system...
“To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes.” (NY Times – Warren Buffett)Workaday people cannot escape such taxes, the rich routinely do, especially those who “make money from money” as Buffett explains. These are people who make money on trading, commission and dividends from investments. They don’t have to pay the payroll taxes working people do.
The El Lay Times editorial board chimes in on Buffett’s side…
Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was signed by President Reagan, the number of tax brackets was reduced, loopholes were closed, the top tax rate was lowered and capital gains were taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. Yet in the years since, Congress has steadily drilled loopholes back into the code while lowering the tax burden for wealthy people who make money through investments rather than labor. That was the source of Buffett's complaint. (El Lay Times)Some kind of a flat tax or national sales tax that exempted basic food staples would put an end to this class warfare rhetoric. And we need get it done so we can focus on real solutions that start by taking a crowbar to the Washington DC-Big Business pornographic embrace.
19 comments:
Our tax code is so damn complicated that an entire cottage industry of CPA's has mushroomed. Not to mention the numbers of people employed by the IRS.
More parasites living off the federal bureaucracy -- for the most part. I do have friends who are CPA's.
A flat tax with exemptions for food and medicines is, I believe, the answer. The mega-rich, like Buffet, represent about 1% of the population. What Buffet is proposing would harm mostly the middle and upper-middle class and, therefore, skew the the wealth distribution even more toward the mega-rich. Maybe that is Buffet's true motivation.
And we need get it done so we can focus on real solutions that start by taking a crowbar to the Washington DC-Big Business pornographic embrace.
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An admirable goal.
Let's start by deregulating, eliminating taxation and stacking the supreme court with stiffs the corporations own ... oh, we've already done that.
The government is The Beast the is devouring us all for its own purposes and pleasure.
There is no need for "increased revenue." In fact it would be far healthier to go the opposite way.
We need to reduce the strength and scope of government not support it.
STARVE The Beast. Don't continue to FEED it.
The Federal government should have no purpose other than to provide DEFENSE if we are attacked by a foreign power, to build and maintain INFRASTRUCTURE, and to hunt and neutralize SUBVERSIVE elements bent on insurrection.
Good luck in pursuing his goal. The Beast has become the dominant force in our lives, because it promised to feed US. Instead it has worked the other way 'round -- the only way it could work, if we stopped to think about it.
Buffett should take his money and set up a series of private foundations designed to ease the burdens of the deserving poor.
The undeserving poor ought first to be sterilized, and then set free to die in the streets.
Buffett -- and any other rich person with a guilt complex who desires to help the poor -- should be able to set his own standards as to who is "deserving" and who is not.
Of course, the undeserving poor should always have the chance to work their way out of that category by sweeping streets, pulling weeds, trimming bushes, mulching flower beds, shining shoes, washing windows, scrubbing floors, polishing brass, washing dishes, harvesting crops, collecting garbage, etc.
Government is our ADVERSARY. It is never our FRIEND.
Government should never have been permitted to run what-amounts-to a MAFIA PROTECTION RACKET -- you know "You pay us twenty-five percent of your earnings, and we promise not to smash up your place of business and break your kneecaps in return."
That's what The New Deal was -- A Mafia Protection Racket.
"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
If you feel you need and deserve "protection," before you hand you remand yourself into custody, first ask yourself, "Who will protect me from the protectors?"
Prison is not a pleasant place to live, even if they do provide you with a roof over your head, a bed, and three meals a day.
~ FreeThinke
Buffett should take his money and set up a series of private foundations designed to ease the burdens of the deserving poor.
He gave all his money to Melinda Gates to spend on NGO's hell bent on establishing a One World order. He can't be bothered to ensure that his billions are "well" spent.
Well of course, Thersites, it's only natural that Buffett would be one of the leading Oligarchs, wouldn't it? He probably thinks his money is being well spent.
Some of the elites may actually believe their plans to unify the globe and construct a New World Order is the most benevolent thing they could do with their wealth and power.
That's what makes it all so terrifying. Do-gooders almost invariably do more harm than Mafiosi, "second-storey men," rapists, and street gangs combined.
The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.
INDEED!
Of course, I'm not sure the International Bankers have ever had good intentions, are you? I suspect their hidden agenda has always been to avenge their ancestors for the contempt and discrimination visited upon them in the past when money lending and the sale of jewels and gold were the only venues open to them.
Cruelty and stupidity based on ignorance, superstition and insularity cast a long, long shadow.
History appears to be little more than one unending Domino Effect. The elements were lined up at The Beginning, and all we seem able to do is sit stupefied and watch them fall -- at first in fascination, and then with mounting terror -- as we realize that we too are part of The Pattern of Doom, and will be crushed in the toppling debris soon enough -- like everyone who ever came before us.
The promise of Heaven for the virtuous in an afterlife is the only thing that gives hope -- unless, like Swinburne, you look upon death as nothing more than a welcome oblivion [See "The Garden of Propserine"].
~ FreeThinke
WHOOPS! Sorry!
That was The Garden of Proserpine.
~ FT
Always On Watch said...
Our tax code is so damn complicated that an entire cottage industry of CPA's has mushroomed. Not to mention the numbers of people employed by the IRS.
More parasites living off the federal bureaucracy -- for the most part. I do have friends who are CPA's
My sister was a CPA and is now the CFO of a commercial real estate investment firm. When the discussion turns to the byzantine US tax code, her eyes glaze over.
Fair/Flat Tax. Scrap the crap we have.
A flat tax with exemptions for food and medicines is, I believe, the answer.
The party of lies should be all over this, being as they are the party that takes care of the poor.
*massive eyeroll*
...and I agree with you.
~ FreeThinke
Excellent post. I copied it to HDD for later reference.
Excellent!
An admirable goal.
Let's start by deregulating, eliminating taxation and stacking the supreme court with stiffs the corporations own ... oh, we've already done that.
8/20/11 7:38 AM
Face meet Palm.
Jeeez....
All lunacy aside.
Buffet is saying something that many, many, many people have been saying for a long time. We need much higher top marginal rates.
We are in a high unemployment/low capital investment environment. Free trade, and stupid Voo Doo economics have brought us to this reef. We need to think about doing the - oh, shudder - unthinkable!!!
Raise taxes.
JMJ
No, Jersey NO.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
We do NOT need higher marginal tax rates for anyone.
We need LESS GOVERNMENT -- LESS GOVERNMENT -- LESS GOVERNMENT.
The lunacy lies in thinking we need as much government as we already have.
We need LESS GOVERNMENT -- LESS GOVERNMENT -- LESS GOVERNMENT.
Government is the PROBLEM. It could never be the SOLUTION.
It is the nature of ALL forms of government to tyrannize and oppress.
If you long so much to be a serf, offer yourself to Robert Mugabe or one of the Arab potentates. They'll be delighted to fulfill your Masochistic desires, I'm sure.
Only three elements favor an Almighty Government -- the Sadists, who run the show, the Masochists and utter FOOLS who enjoy being seized, systematically tortured, roasted alive, then devoured.
Government will suck the very marrow from your bones, if you encourage it.
Government is like unto a VAMPIRE. Welcome it into your life and it will turn you into a ZOMBIE.
~ FreeThinke
"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism –- free government is founded on jealousy, and not in confidence which prescribes limited constitutions . . . In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
"When we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations of these states; that the states themselves have principle care of our persons, our property and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and officers have not multiplied unnecessarily, and sometimes injuriously, to the service they were meant to promote."
"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will cultivate, and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe their minds must be improved ..."
~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Submitted by FreeThinke
Thank you for your kind words, 98ZJ USMC.
~ FreeThinke
Unlike Swineburn, I've no desire to dwell in the land of Lotus Eaters nor sit in a tower and view the road to Camelot through the window like the Lady of Shalott. I plan on living a life and leaving a message to "active spirits" for avoiding "Ophelias". Achilles - choose the fame & glory... MAKE THE ARTIST'S WAGER! Do not dwell in Eliot's Wasteland to grow old and die on Skyros like the hollow men!
Zarathustra
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Overman may hereafter arrive.
I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Overman may hereafter live. Thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who laboureth and inventeth, that he may build the house for the Overman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
On the artist's wager
Buffet and friends need to write the government a check each year and stfu.
Still waiting on warren to write that cheque for 20 billion, nobody holding your hands behind your back old son, go on now.
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