A MINIMUM TAX FOR THE WEALTHY

Warren Buffett of Omaha, Nebraska

Those aren't my words.  They're Warren Buffett's.  He has a great op-ed piece in today’s NY Times which I urge you to read and send to the President we elected (twice) and to your represent-atives in  Congress.

Buffett makes some telling arguments. Here's how his piece starts out: "Suppose that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.”
"Would your reply possibly be this? “Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you’re saying we’re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.” Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination does such a response exist."

This is a point that I've been trying to make for a looong time.

Let's take a test.  Here’s a group.  You tell me what they have in common besides being inventors, investors and fabulously wealthy:
Steve Wozniak and the too-soon-departed Steve Jobs, of Apple Computer
David and Charles Koch, of Koch Industries, funders of the Tea Party
Sheldon Adelson, owner of Sands Casinos in Las Vegas, Macao & Singapore, sugar-daddy first to Newt Gingrich and then to Mitt Romney
Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes of FaceBook
Henry Ford
Warren Buffet

Answer: Not one of them ever said “let’s not do this because we’ll make too much money and have to pay taxes on it.”

Here's Buffett's 2-part plan:
1.  A 30% tax on taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 % on amounts above that.
2.  Don't wait until we can "reform" the whole tax code.  Change as much of it as we can.  Now!

Why even some now? you ask.  Here's why, according to Warren Buffett: "...the reform of such complexities should not promote delay in our correcting simple and expensive inequities. We can’t let those who want to protect the privileged get away with insisting that we do nothing until we can do everything."

Now there's a man who makes sense.  As "Jimmy Brown, the newsboy of the town" in the old Flatt & Scruggs song, would say: "Read all about it" at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/opinion/buffett-a-minimum-tax-for-the-wealthy.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20121126