One of the World’s Richest Men Says, “Raise My Taxes!”
And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation. ~Warren Buffet
One of the most talked about, linked to and Twittered news articles today is one written by one of the wealthiest men in the world. He’s renowned investor, phenonimally rich, personally frugal and the creator of The Giving Pledge, which urges billionaires to give away huge swaths of their fortune to the less fortunate.
You’d be hard pressed to find many people who want their taxes raised, but Warren Buffet thinks the super-rich in America have been “coddled” for far too long:
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. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.
I encourage you to read this article in full. It’s not very long, and it’s a really powerful piece of writing that simply spells out exactly how unfair the current system is.
What do you think about Buffet’s piece? Do you agree that the uber-wealthy should pay more into the American tax system? Let us know your thoughts on this “hot topic” in the comments.
