Watch: Warren Buffett Calls For Tax Reform

What you failed to mention, J.J., is that tax breaks stimulate the economy: for the poor and middle class by stimulating spending, for the rich and businesses by stimulating growth in production and jobs.

Why is it "Great Minds" fail to see this obviousness?

Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

GO to law school before you run your mouth.

You are dead wrong. Explaining why would take more room than this form allows.

Also, after practicing law for 30 years, including constitutional law, my patience for explaining things to fools is shot.

Stop with the BS on the SS "crisis" there is no crisis. Even Greedspan says the shortfall is only 3% which would be easily fixed by raising the cap, increasing the retirment age by 2 years or rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthiest.

SS is one of the most successful govt programs of all time - and the wingnuts and supply siders keep trying to gut it and make everyone think its bankrupt - which its not. Thats why attempts to kill SS fail - everyone likes it.

If we had Gore's much mocked lockbox preventing congress from raiding the fund all the time, we wouldn't even be talking about a "shortfall"

I used to work with this guy who came from $$$$. His working a relatively "joe job" was his way of rebelling. I asked him one time about tax shelters /write-offs and he said you wouldn't believe the amount of $$$$ the wealthy don't pay taxes on.

A flat' tax is extremely regressive. The necessities (food , shelter etc) have a minimum cost regardless of income and anything less than spending that amount means you do with out. That minimm 'stay alive' $ cost is every penny of income for those below 200% FPL (+/-) It isn't even 1% of the income of the upper 5%.

FOr the person in the bottom 1/3 of the economic scale, they will be paying the money they need to stay alive in tax. For those in the upper 1/3, they won't notice it in terms of necessities.

Try taxing unearned income (such as dividends) at the same rate as earned including tagging it for FICA/FUTA (Medicare, Soc Sec and unemplyment.)

The concept of a flat tax will only benefit those who pay above whatever the rate is set to be. If you already pay 17% then what benefit is this to you? If you pay less than 17% then you would have to pay more (it is, after all, a flat tax not a progressive tax - a flat tax would, in spirit, be the base line we all pay.) This concept is yet another way of redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top. Don't we have enough of that now? The most ridiculous notion I've heard about the flat tax is that those who pay above the flat rate would be only glad to pay that share and lose all of the deductions they have built into the tax system. If they won't pay their share now, they won't pay it in the future, no matter how low it is set. But as long as people who won't benefit one iota from it feel compelled to support it (cause it worked so well in Russia) we the people will continue to be punked.

"Lowering taxes for the wealthiest people in this country is the sure route to financial disaster. Consider the Great Depression. It was caused ENTIRELY by financial benefits to the wealthy,"

Actually cutting the taxes on the wealthy was also the cause of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution.

Flat taxes do NOT address what is the primary issue in the tax returns of the very wealthy-- what is an is not income. Income is often hidden as business expense or through other ways of disguising income. Cutting taxes on the wealthy is supposed to primarily result in that money going to the supply side-- to increasing the goods available to consumers thus lowering cost. However the best return on that money can be had by advertising thus manipulating demand and lobbying or political contributions. so the supply side model simply ignores these other factors and ignores what really happens.

!7%, I have never paid 17% Federal income tax, and neither have the vast majority of Americans. The flat tax once again favors the rich and really puts it to the middle class. Yeh, you may pay 30% or more on part of your income but the simple arthmetic is tax actually paid divided by total income. With a household income approaching $125,000 and a couple of kids and a mortgage the total should not exceed 13-14%. Folks with less income pay less than that.

Although I'd like to see a flat tax on all income, I'm not convinced that lower taxes always create opportunities and employment. Employment in foreign countries maybe, these days, but not here.
Even Ronald Reagan was embarassed enough by the unfair taxation of income in comparison to corporate taxes that he instituted the minimum corporate tax.
We need to get more progressive in taxing more than the first 85 thousand dollars for social security and then we wouldn't be facing shortfalls there. Why should Paris Hilton's fortune be taxed each year on only the first 85,000 dollars? Because she creates jobs?

But they would have to tax all income and not just wages which is something that will never happen.

Well you can read up on Buffet if you really want to know. He has been in support of more taxes on the wealthy since at least Reagan was president. He probably won't have his estate taxed because he is giving all but a few million to charity. He supports higher taxes on the wealthy and always has. The man is a liberal as well as many other wealthy people. He does realize he has benefited greatly from this country and is more than willing to pay his share. The assumption that you must be poor to be liberal is a generality that only shows the stupidity of generalities.

Cynical? It is just possible to consider the correctness of the idea without judging the motives of Mr. Buffet. I have no idea what motivated Buffet's comments, but I agree with him in this case. And, note, the corporate and highly paid media have not run with the story, have they?

I find it interesting that billionaires Buffet and Soros seem to support the concept of a mixed economy, while that little worm Milton Friedman (now canonized) and his chelas in the Republican party continue to be 'true believers' in 'laissez faire' capitalism (sic. free market). From the folks that brought you the great depression, another chance at poverty for most and, well, you get it, amazing packages for the corporate 'princes'.

Like Joe Kennedy, Buffet knows the tricks of Wall street. FDR brought in Kennedy to eliminate some of the abuses of insider trading and other stock market manipulations. If Buffet is willing to agree to cut loopholes, he might still take advantage of remaining loopholes but we'd be a more fiscally sound country by listening to his calls for rationalizing the tax structure.
The fact that the Kennedys or now Buffet may continue to make money and take advantage of tax laws does not take away from their willingness to accept a larger burden of taxes in exchange for their success as entrepreneurs or allocators of capital.
You can't have it both ways in the conscience department. If Buffet wants to institutionalize a better conscience into the fabric of our presently amoral corporate structured tax code, those without massive capital resources should trust that he doesn't really want to have the system remain the same.