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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.
Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.
It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago. "I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-m...
I'm pretty sure this has happened lots of times. Matt Damon said something along those lines recently.
As a freshly minted middle-class American, I disagree with Mr. Buffet's argument here. Though his eagerness to share the tax-burden is laudable, I hope that tax rates stay low for him. I would pay higher taxes to keep it that way. Simply put, I don't trust the government with that money.
I don't trust capitalists with it.
While it's now mighty generous of Buffett to invite the government to increase his taxes, he could spare us another (http://www.cnbc.com/id/40229527/Warren_Buffett_s_Letter_to_U...) nauseating and embarrassing New York Times op-ed and instead put his money where his mouth is. As another poster has noted, the Treasury will gladly cash Buffett's check (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.
Why does Buffet donate to charity rather than the treasury? Does he believe that the government will use his money less efficiently than the organizations he donates to?
Voluntary gifts of money can be sent to the U.S. Treasury at this address: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html One has to ask, if any super rich person really considered the U.S. Government a worthwhile investment, why are they donating to various charities instead of to the Treasury?
Most decent charities deliver far more per unit donated than the US government could ever wish to achieve. If you're interested in pure charity, you're not going to get much bang for your buck at the federal level.
Who pays what in taxes is really a diversion.
The problem is getting low to middle income people to stop voting against themselves. Good luck with that, they all seem to think they are going to be billionaires someday so better keep those billionaire taxes low. Either that or by bribing the wealthy with low taxes they might only ship out half the jobs overseas instead of all of them. It's just dumbfounding. Election after election, over and over.
-Ulysses S. Grant
People fighting or voting against their own self interest has gone on for a long time, sadly.
You have to tax the money that doesn't move. The millions of unneeded unspent $ that the rich are sitting on, with a wealth tax. You may not even make the poor richer, but you will make the rich poorer. Good.
Reading this just makes me think of all of the lobbying dollars and campaign contributions that must have been paid by the super-rich to get these tax breaks. Am I the only one that feels some populist rage welling up when he hears how much money is wasted on campaigning for office and influencing people in office? Aren't there more worthy uses of wealth and scarce resources? And it just pains me that so many people…