Chris Christie To Warren Buffett: 'Just Write A Check And Shut Up'

Chris Christie has some choice words for billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

"He should just write [the government] a check and shut up," the New Jersey Governor and one-time rumored presidential candidate told CNN's Piers Morgan.

Christie was referring to Buffett's desire to be taxed at a higher rate. The Oracle of Omaha, as he is known, has advocated taxing the rich at a rate at least as high as that of middle-class Americans in an August op-ed in The New York Times. Since then, the notion of raising taxes on the wealthy has gained some momentum; in his latest budget plan, President Obama proposed a provision, dubbed "the Buffett rule," that would require Americans making more than $1 million to pay taxes at a rate of at least 30 percent.

The effective individual tax rate for the top one percent of Americans has been largely on the decline for years, falling to 19 percent in 2007, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Christie, who said in the interview that he'd prefer if New Jersey slash all income taxes by 10 percent, said he thinks Buffett should take matters into his own hands instead of advocating for a boost in taxes for the wealthy.

"I'm tired of hearing about it," Christie said in the interview. "If he wants to give the government more money, he's got the ability to write a check. Go ahead and write it."

Some do indeed write checks out to the government. As of August of last year, 815 households had sent donations to the Treasury's general fund in 2011, according to Yahoo! News. More money gets sent to the nation's fund to reduce the deficit, which raked in more than $2 million in 2011. Still, the donations aren't enough to put a significant dent in the deficit; $2 million is way less than 1 percent of the $2.1 billion the U.S. pays in interest on the national debt every day, according to ABC News.

Christie isn't the first Republican lawmaker to give Buffett a hard time. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) sent Buffett a letter in October urging him to release his tax returns. Buffett ultimately revealed his tax returns, which indicated that he made more than $60 million last year, but his taxable income was slightly less than $40 million during that same period.

The release of another famous tax return only fueled the debate over taxing the rich. After pressure from opponents Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney revealed that he paid a 13.9 percent income tax rate in 2010 -- a rate lower than that of many middle-class Americans -- even though he and his wife netted $21.7 million in combined income in 2010.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the Romneys' combined income in 2010. It was $21.7 million. Piers Morgan's first name was also previously misspelled.

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Comments

[IndependentRule]

02:42 PM on 04/05/2012

I do like that man..Tell it like it is......

[Kerri Zwetzig Wilson]

04:09 PM on 02/27/2012

Oh these people! Always so full of bluster and other forms of toxic gases, which are just as unpleasing to the senses as your rampant and worn out rhetoric. **Yawn**

[jrleftfoot]

12:02 AM on 02/27/2012

I used to wonder why the people of New Jersey weren`t allowed to pump their own gas .Then they elected this guy.It makes more sense to me now.

[jrleftfoot]

11:57 PM on 02/26/2012

I wish I couch this in terms simple enough for Ms,T and Ms. RM to understand(sigh). Maxine Waters is irrelevant to this conversation BECAUSE (please pay attention) she is not being considered as a potential Democratic candidate for President or VP.Christie`s boorish behavior is significant because---oh never mind.If they haven`t gotten it by now,they`re just too intellectually challenged.

[JohnnyRivers]

02:51 PM on 02/26/2012

Hey Chris! That's like Buffet telling you to have another box of donuts. Thanks for showing the nation who you are working for... The mega-wealthy.

[nia122]

09:56 AM on 02/26/2012

Paying taxes should not be treated like some charitable or philanthropic endeavor that one or two individuals enshrined in at will. The idea is to tax ALL of those at the top to pay their fair share (as individuals) every single year. Gov. Christie knows this. He is just choosing to pandering to an illinformed base.

[Real12]

10:13 PM on 02/25/2012

Buffet offered to match any donations by Repubs in Congress, so the ball is back in your court gop...

[tin soldier]

12:31 PM on 03/05/2012

The GOP and republicans know their money serves a better purpose injected into the economy, then giving it to a government that will only use it for entitlment programs that will get the Dem/Libs votes, or to be used for green enrgy companies that declare bankruptcy

[frdm399]

03:37 PM on 02/25/2012

The hypocrite buffett just wants everyone else pay higher taxes. Tax him and he'll just fight it in court.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/buffett-irs-back-taxes/2011/09/01/id/409520

[Terri Skau]

03:35 PM on 02/25/2012

Cell phone monitoring and alleged entrapment

In 2005, Christie prosecuted the Hemant Lakhani terrorism case, in which the defendant claimed that he had been entrapped. In that case, Christie's office relied on an informant who had been dismissed by the FBI as unreliable for fabricating claims of terrorist activity. For more than a year, the informant, working with the U.S. attorney's office, solicited Lakhani for access to arms. Lakhani was unable to obtain anything until an undercover agent contacted him and supplied him with a fake missile. In an interview with the public radio program This American Life, Christie brushed off suggestions that Lakhani was entrapped by law enforcement, defending the Lakhani prosecution.

In April 2009, the ACLU publicized records showing that Christie had obtained court orders authorizing warrantless cellphone tracking of people in 79 instances. Christie responded that the practice was legal and court approved. An ACLU attorney stated that federal law does not address cell phone or GPS use in surveillance and added that the ACLU believes a law requiring warrants for such use is needed

[tin soldier]

12:34 PM on 03/05/2012

The ACLU stated their opinion regarding the warrants, that's it, opinion. What else ya got???

[Terri Skau]

01:29 PM on 03/05/2012

Christie is as corrupt as the rest of the GOP/TB's...;-)

[Terri Skau]

03:25 PM on 02/25/2012

I'll keep ripping on him. He is nothing but another Sanctimonious P****.

[liberalntex]

03:25 PM on 02/25/2012

Buffett messes with the Fox News Republicans plans to continue redistribute more wealth to the top 1% with more tax cuts.
That's it Christie, go off on anyone who messes with the Koch Brothers/American For Prosperity's Agenda. Just like you yelled at police and fireman in your own state.

[Terri Skau]

03:21 PM on 02/25/2012

Claims of misuse of deferred prosecution agreements

Christie has been accused of using his office's role in crafting deferred prosecution agreements to award lucrative federal monitoring positions in no-bid contracts to friends, supporters, and allies.[28] Questions first arose after Christie awarded a multimillion-dollar no-bid contract to David Kelley, another former U.S. Attorney, who had investigated Christie's brother, Todd Christie, in a 2005 fraud case involving traders at the Wall Street firm, Spear, Leeds & Kellogg.[29][30] Kelley had declined to prosecute Todd Christie, who had been ranked fourth in the investigation—initiating a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint among twenty traders who earned the largest profits for their company at the expense of their customers. The top three were indicted, as were eleven other traders.[31]

[Terri Skau]

03:19 PM on 02/25/2012

Lobbyist

In 1998 Christie registered as a lobbyist for the firm of Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci, alongside fellow partner and later, gubernatorial campaign fundraiser Bill Palatucci. Between 1999 and 2001, Christie and Palatucci lobbied on behalf of, among others, GPU Energy for deregulation of New Jersey's electric and gas industry; the Securities Industry Association to block the inclusion of securities fraud under the state's Consumer Fraud Act; Hackensack University Medical Center for state grants, and the University of Phoenix for a New Jersey higher education license.[17]

[Terri Skau]

03:18 PM on 02/25/2012

In 1995, Christie announced a bid for a seat in the New Jersey General Assembly; he and attorney Rick Merkt ran as a ticket against incumbent Assemblyman Anthony Bucco and attorney Michael Patrick Carroll in the Republican primary. Bucco and Carroll, the establishment candidates, defeated the up-and-comers by a wide margin. After this loss, Christie's bid for re-nomination to the freeholder board was unlikely, as unhappy Republicans recruited John J. Murphy to run against Christie in 1997. Murphy defeated Christie in the primary.[16] Murphy, who had falsely accused Christie of having the county pay his legal bills in the architect's lawsuit, was sued by Christie after the election. They settled out of court; nevertheless, Christie's career in Morris County politics was over by 1998.

[Terri Skau]

03:05 PM on 02/25/2012

Warren Buffett is ready to call Republicans’ tax bluff. Last fall, Senator Mitch McConnell said that if Buffett were 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, 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.”

Still, he’s willing to take them up on it. “It restores my faith in human nature to think that there are people who have been around Washington all this time and are not yet so cynical as to think that [the deficit] can’t be solved by voluntary contributions,” he says with a chuckle. So Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. “And I’ll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,” he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, “I’m not worried.