Buffett demands to pay more tax? An alternative view!

[FlyLie]

Prowler, I understand where you are comming from, But that is not what Buffet is talking about. If you do a little GOOGLE research, two things will become clear; one, he is advocating a higher tax on the rich's rich, two, he is giving away all his $$, but not to the guy on the street corner, but to foundations who can assure it is spent wisely.

I'm guessing if you spent a good majority of your life working hard to get to the point to where you made a million dollars per year you'd look at this a little differently. Maybe not, but maybe so. I'm sure everyone has some extra money to give away. Let's all just run down to the corner and give it the homeless guy and everybody else that would like a piece of it. You first.........

A lot of it is in the decisions you make. I don't know many on this board here personally so I'm not passing any judgement on anyone here. I work in one of the poorest counties in the state of Indiana. I see it everyday. The vast majority of people that surround me did not just "fall" on hard times, it happened because of the choices they made, starting right out of high school.

[psprowler]

Well fair enough I guess. Just concerned about where the line would eventually end up. First the top 1%, then top 5%, then 10%, etc.

If my tax rate went up from 36% to say 40% then that extra 4% is going to be taken away from any discretionary(sp?) spending my family would do. So I wouldn't be stimulating the economy as much. Not taking that vacation, buying that Ipad, whatever. But it could go to fix roads, national defense, etc. If it wasn't blown on something goofy......

Spend what we have wisely I guess that's my theory. Maybe that doesn't have anything to do with Warren Buffett but I'm tossing it out there!

[RoadToad]

So does Obama's tax plans call for raising taxes on everyone above the 250k mark or not.

If NOT then I'm an unreasonable man.

Yes it does, but that's OBAMA's plan, not BUFFETT's! This thread was started to discuss the merits of Buffett's idea, not Obama's. But rather than discuss the idea on its merits, you're substituting an argument about another subject. You refuse to even consider his idea, simply because it entails somebody, somewhere in America, paying more taxes. Never mind that he also said, "job one for the 12 [committee members] is to pare down some future promises that even a rich American can't fulfill." You do understand what he means, right? The first thing the super committee needs to work on is spending cuts!

Like I said before, BOTH sides need to listen to this guy; he knows what he's talking about.

[RICHYD4U]

I don't understand this debate of raising taxes?

Raising taxes would do nothing to help us get out of the trillions of dollars we are in debt...its like a drop in the bucket compared to how much money our government spends right now. The simple fact is that regardless of the tax levels, we are spending out of our "you know whats"....and now matter how much you try and tax the rich, unless you drastically cut our spending....we will continue to accumulate massive debt.

-Rich

[GeoFisher]

OK.....so Buffett talks about his extremely low taxes.....fine.....He pays a low rate due to capital gains taxes.......

Lower CAPITAL gains taxes is just that......LOWER TAXES on Capital.....MONEY in the system....Do you suppose taxing MONEY in the system is going to help grow our economy NO.

Next. Buffett chooses to take his income in Capital Gains, instead of a salary....HIS CHOICE. He could pay himself a hefty salary instead, and pay 10 craploads more in taxes.....instead, he uses the system to pay lower taxes. FIX the system so he cannot take primary income as GAINS.

I think personal income should be taxed as personal income.........he's cheating and loves the fact that everyone is up in arms about it. He is being very, VERY dishonest about the issue if you ask me.

Raising the amount you pay on capital gains will hurt anyone who is currently in the market....and if you DON'T think folks will pull their money out of the market TODAY at a lower gains rate......you are kidding yourself.......I WILL, and everyone else I know WILL. We're talking about 10 or 15 percent in additional taxes.......

Later,

Geo

[vetbass]

exactly geo--"fix the system so he cannot take primary income as GAINS"--prevent the millionaires and billionares from side stepping the system or using loopholes to get out of paying their fare share--during the debt debate the dems wanted to close these type of loopholes and the repubs threw a fit calling it "job killing" tax hikes--i agree with you in that there is no reason to raise the capital gains rate just close the ridiculous loopholes--now were making some progress

[GeoFisher]

exactly geo--"fix the system so he cannot take primary income as GAINS"--prevent the millionaires and billionares from side stepping the system or using loopholes to get out of paying their fare share--during the debt debate the dems wanted to close these type of loopholes and the repubs threw a fit calling it "job killing" tax hikes--i agree with you in that there is no reason to raise the capital gains rate just close the ridiculous loopholes--now were making some progress

Yea but fixing that loophole will KILL investments...........It really depends on how far they want to go with raising taxes on gains. Instead of raising taxes on capital gains.....CLOSE that loophole and force millionaires and billionaires to pay taxes on income......

I'm certainly not a millionaire or a billionaire , but a gain in taxes that Obama has been pushing will take a significant pile of money from me at retirement. I will MOVE that money in a new york minute to something else.....LIKE buying and hoarding precious metals........

[Devils Horse]

As an employee of a Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffet owned company, I have a suggestion.

Sir, instead of asking the federal government to confiscate more of your wealth, see to it the employees of your numerous companies are more generously compensated.

Take a few billion and give those of us making less than 250K a year a nice generous 20 to 30 percent raise. That would cycle some serious money back into the economy and beef up the federal/state/local tax coffers too.

A doggone win-win solution.

I promise you we'd spend it a lot more wisely than Barack Obama and that crew of blood suckers in DC would.

How about it Mr. Buffet?

[vetbass]

i may be wrong but i dont think obama has ever said he wanted to raise capital gains rate off the 15%--he did say he wanted to prevent folks from hiding their income in capital gains to get out of paying their fare share

[GeoFisher]

i may be wrong but i dont think obama has ever said he wanted to raise capital gains rate off the 15%--he did say he wanted to prevent folks from hiding their income in capital gains to get out of paying their fare share

It took me less than 2 seconds to find over 100 stories about how Obama wanted to raise gains to 23.5 percent.

"obama wants to raise capital gains " in any search engine will find all you need to know.

I mean......REALLY??

Later,

Geo

[waterdog101]

BULL CRAP.

You really need to get a handle on all this mamby pamby whiny crap the Left is spewing at you.

WHEN you don't have a job...you FIND A JOB....when you cannot feed your family, you figure out HOW TO FEED YOUR FAMILY.

I find it sickening that you buy into that bull, and would much rather lay down and ACCEPT the poor conditions you've been handed instead of working your way out of it.

Yea, I could be out of a job tomorrow..but you know what.....I've PLANNED for that. I would be employed in less than a week. GUARANTEED. I have an education, I have skills, I'm WILLING to move wherever I can find work......I will work for 1/2 of what I make, I will work for 1/4 what I make, I will work for 1/8 what I make.........I WILL WORK.

I live a lean life.......what I have is MINE, not the banks. I live within my means, and don't have 10k in credit cards, 50k in boat payments, 30k in car payments 120k in house payments.......but I will start to incur more debt because the economy wiped out pretty much all the savings I've squirreled away for my college educations.....THAT will be my only debts, outside of a very small mortgage...

If MORE of us would live within our means and stop whining about how much the gubment is expected to do..........MAN.....

I'm gonna stop now, because I really feel like I'm going to PUKE.

Later,

Geo

it might do you some good to PUKE.

[kydonky]

I don't understand this debate of raising taxes?

Raising taxes would do nothing to help us get out of the trillions of dollars we are in debt...its like a drop in the bucket compared to how much money our government spends right now. The simple fact is that regardless of the tax levels, we are spending out of our "you know whats"....and now matter how much you try and tax the rich, unless you drastically cut our spending....we will continue to accumulate massive debt.

-Rich

I think this national debt is a big problem.

About ten years ago I found myself extended way beyond my means. Credit cards, house payment, utilities, insurance. car payment, every month I was streached to the limit. So I got a part time job 3 nights a week and withing 18 months the credit cards, car, and home equity loans were all paid off.

I could not have done this without the income. I could have missed the house payment and moved into a tent in the park, but my wife would have took the children and moved on, so that was not realistic.

So we are in the same situation. The debt is high and we are not going to cut the debt by taking in less money. Simple math shows that less money coming in means less money paid on the debt.

We do need to control spending but that is not going to get us out of this debt alone. We had budget surpluses in the 80's with a tax schedule that was not intolerable and a strong economy.

So if we can generate more income in a fair and equitable manner to earmark towards the debt, coupled with very controlled spending, perhaps we can manage ourselves out of this debt.

If we can eliminate this debt, the national budget would increase by 30% on interest savings alone.

Don't confuse the debt with deficit. The deficit is the short fall each year and the debt is the shortfall that has accumulate over many, many years.

The biggest argument now is that any tax revenue increase will stall the economic growth. This would not be good for employment and the current economy struggling out of a resession.

So I think it is a good idea to raise revenues although we may wait until the economy is on strong footing. I for one would be very happy to make a small sacrafice to get us out of this debt quagmire once and for all. Then we should look at the balanced budget amendment.

In the meantime lets get out of Afganistan and Iraq. Bin Ladden has been caught. Pakistan is no friend and we can save billions and billions getting out now. Spend that money paying off the debt and building or military back up. That would do the most to strengthen the USA.