Warren Buffett To Sen. Mitch McConnell: Put Up Or Shut Up

TIME.com:

Warren Buffett is ready to call Republicans’ tax bluff. Last fall, Senator Mitch McConnell said that if Buffett was feeling “guilty” about paying too little in taxes, he should “send in a check.” The jab was in response to Buffett’s August 2011 New York Times op-ed, which made hay of the fact that our tax system is so unbalanced that Buffett (worth about $45 billion) pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Senator John Thune promptly introduced the “Buffett Rule Act,” an option on tax forms that would allow the rich to donate more in taxes to help pay down the national debt. It was, as Buffett told me for this week’s TIME cover story, “A tax policy only a Republican could come up with.”

Read the whole story: TIME.com

Comments

[janmB]

06:05 PM on 01/17/2012

Taxation cannot be a VOLUNTEER PROGRAM. That is the most ignorant of suggestions towards solving our deficit.
Would McConnell like his salary--pension and healthcare considered "charity" and contributed by donations only. He'd get ZERO from me.

[Y2KCockroach]

05:57 PM on 01/16/2012

People such as Buffett, Gates, Zuckerberg, Schmidt, and even the late Steve Jobs are dangerous to the GOP; they know how to make money, they hire legions of workers, they know how the economy works, and they are progressive thinkers.....

They put the lie to so much of what the GOP holds as sacrosanct...

Who would you rather spend lunch talking to? One of those named above (okay, maybe not Jobs...), or Mitch McConnell and the fine minds running the GOP?

[Charles Queen]

10:10 PM on 01/13/2012

Thats easy to say when you have more than a billion dollars o throw away on stupid things so you can say,look what I bought everyone to his many other wealthy friends.Buffet needs to keeep his mouth shut.He made out like a bandit with bailout moeny himslef and actually he really didn't even need it.I also see that old Buffet does have a weak spot as he was reduced down to a teary eyed blubbering person over something that was said that was personal to him.Wonder how he liked it.I don't keep up with the guy or most of the others that are multi billionares for that matter.Many of them don't do anything thats kind with their money such as donations to childrens hospitals etc here in this country.If I had that kind of money those things would be at the top of my prority list.With what I do get now from my military disability and s.s. I already donate to STJudes and another childrens hospital in Michigan

[Bruce Erickson]

12:34 PM on 01/13/2012

Please take it easy on our law makers Mr Buffit. They have worked HARD at underhanded, theivery, double dealing, and using insider ingormation to make their MILLIONS. They CAN'T deal straight anymore after all these years of being dishonest. So PLEASE don't challenge them to be honest anymore as most of them have NO IDEA of how to do that ANYMORE.

[stopnlisten]

11:17 AM on 01/15/2012

Sort of like your Romney?

[Bruce Erickson]

07:12 PM on 01/15/2012

I don't pick on any one of them. As far as I can see we have 525 tax cheats now in power representing us here in American plus the thousands of 1% that support them and follow their lead.
Give me the flat 10% tax rate for EVERYONE in America corporations AND every citazen.





i

[fredloughner]

10:19 AM on 01/13/2012

Kentucky needs to get him out of office and prop him up in the wax museum

[fredloughner]

10:13 AM on 01/13/2012

Mitch McConnell is lower than whale S**t

[FreddieVee]

12:53 AM on 01/13/2012

So rich Liberals should donate money to the government and rich Conservatives should donate money to Super PACs in order to bring down the tax rates of all rich people?

Sounds fair if you're a rich Conservative or a GOP politician who wants to get elected or re-elected. Doesn't sound fair if you are not in the top 1%.

FreddieVee

[Steve Brewer II]

11:19 PM on 01/12/2012

I can only hope McConnell shuts up and gets voted out of office.

[bobnky]

11:14 PM on 01/12/2012

Buffet is a liberal who likes the idea of a big powerful federal government that is flush with the cash necessary to accomplish all its desires. Mitch is doing just fine.

[Steve Brewer II]

11:31 PM on 01/12/2012

Um no. Buffet is in favor of having the government have the money they need so they don't have to borrow money which would increase the deficit. So I guess the Liberals are the true deficit hawks and Republicans are vultures trying to kill the government.

[bobnky]

12:34 AM on 01/13/2012

We might wish the government to have some money to accomplish some ends. But on the other hand it has been shown to be basic in human nature that it has a wish - in spite of some supposed compelling interests - to limit its power by way of limiting it's purse strings. This is a part of the struggle of the opposing forces in government?

[phillip finley]

08:52 PM on 01/12/2012

Where the Jobs Bills at worst speaker of the house Bonhner?......who still is hiding out and the Media is all Quiet!

[ceasar01]

09:08 PM on 01/17/2012

The Repubs have sent to the President a total of 0 job bills for his signature. That's zero, none, nada.






















0 jobs bills, none. That might help the country and help Obama.





t

[antiteabagerj]

07:32 PM on 01/12/2012

Kentucky is the state elected RAND PAUL.RAND PAUL FOR GODS SAKE

[gbrooks]

04:13 AM on 01/13/2012

Rand Paul just gave 500k back to the treasury, he voted against the NDAA and he's trying to get the troops out of Afghanistan.

I like him.

[claraluz]

04:25 PM on 01/13/2012

Just grandstanding. He knows that President Obama has already scheduled the withdrawal from Afghanistan for next year.

[antiteabagerj]

07:30 PM on 01/12/2012

McConnell in Kentucky is GOD and everywhere else he aint CHIT

[claraluz]

04:27 PM on 01/13/2012

Isn't Kentucky part of the Bible Belt?

[Liviu]

07:18 PM on 01/12/2012

For all the people that think "trickle down" is real, I have one question.
Have you ever delivered pizza in a rich neighbourhood?

Ponder that.

[phillip finley]

08:50 PM on 01/12/2012

Nope!.....

[Steve Brewer II]

11:26 PM on 01/12/2012

Trickle down is real, just a horrible economic approach. The truth is it is trickle up, if you want the economy to move and expand you need to give the majority of consumers, ie the bottom 99%, disposable income. It is fine if Republicans and Conservatives want to stick with tax cuts, they just need to do it in the correct places. If taxcuts for corportions and the wealthy truly stir economic growth we should never have went into recession, we should've been swimming in jobs. Next time someone harps that we should cut taxs on the 1% ask them the same question Boehner was asking President Obama, where are the jobs?

[claraluz]

04:32 PM on 01/13/2012

Those idiots have not yet figured out that wealth is created FROM THE BOTTOM UP -- American economy really took off after the laws passed following WWII to help veterans low-rate mortgages, the GI Bill -- created a strong middle class that bought homes and cars and big-ticket items, and paid taxes. The corporation "people" stash away the money, like they are doing right now sitting on billions -- in offshore banks, no doubt -- that should be put back into the economy through investments in infrastructure and other job-creating enterprises.

[Lightoward]

05:29 PM on 01/12/2012

This whole argument from the GOP when the rich say that the rich should pay more, that if the rich want to pay more taxes, they are free to do so, is a premier example of the GOP's impulse to misrepresent.

It is an attempt to distract from the point that those rich willing to pay more are making. The point is to raise the tax rate for ALL of those in the highest brackets so that ALL in those brackets pay more. For some to make the choice to do so is not at all the same thing, and the dishonest GOPers very well know that it isn't.

[moonchild967]

05:11 PM on 01/12/2012

Dear Jesus, Please save a special spot in heaven for Warren. Make it above the area of the pit where the rep congressmen/women are going to be and please give him a brand new red rider b b gun. Amen

[claraluz]

04:34 PM on 01/13/2012

LOL!!! Love it.