The 5 Best Moments Of Warren Buffett's Epic New York Times Op-ed
One of our richest people (he seems to bounce between the numbers one and two slots) has come out in favor of tax increases on the wealthy. Now can we start doing that? I mean he said it was okay. posted
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. 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.
These are the first two paragraphs of the piece. Buffett wastes no time coming in and throwing punches. The somewhat passive agressive tone of the first paragraph is especially wonderful.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
This section is awesome because Buffett presents the numbers without much commentary. The disparity of percentage is so ridiculous that it speaks for itself.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. 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.
This is the haymaker as far as I'm concerned. In two paragraphs he blows up the major arguments against higher taxes for the wealthy. Now his points here are not totally new, but having someone of Buffett's stature and wealth saying them gives them an incredible amount of credibility.
Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.
Hear, hear! And that reality sucks.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
A fantastic finish. I hope Congress and the super-wealthy read this and see that if Warren Buffett of all people thinks this is a good idea, then it probably is a good idea. I don't think he's made his money through being dumb about finance.
Read the entire piece in The New York Times.
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