Warren Buffett Wins Yet Another Pissing Contest Against Republicans

Warren Buffett, uncharacteristically cool mo-fo for a guy of his stature (not that I've met him or anything,) has put his money where his mouth is with regard to his discontent with our current tax policy. 

Last summer, he wrote an op-ed prior to the convening of the "Supercommittee" (what a waste of time and money) in which he stated that he and the uber-rich friends he has who "make money with money" have a much lower tax burden than people who "earn money from a job".  Now ain't that some shit?

So, naturally, he suggests that the net tax rates for wealthy Americans should be higher than for those of us in the working class.  In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) essentially told Buffett that he was more than welcome to stroke a check to the Treasury to help pay down the national debt, if he felt so inclined.  Wow, really, so now the two options available to us (based on Republican preferences) is to either cut spending, or to allow the wealthiest to decide if they want to pay as much in taxes as working folk?  Clearly, I'm missing something here.  Ohhhhh, right, I forgot we have to have the working class subsidize the "job creators".  Because lord knows, if taxes went up on the wealthiest Americans, well, they would all stop growing their businesses.  Because at anything higher than 35% for income and 15% for capital gains, rich entrepreneurs will lose interest in making more money.  They'll stop wanting to work hard and gain market share.  At least that's what economist/comedian Arthur Laffer would have you believe.

Gladly, I caught the PBS News Hour last night where his assumptions were (to put it nicely) called into question.  He convincingly (that is, for non-inquiring minds) claims that if the marginal tax rates for the wealthiest were increased anything above the current 35 percent, that tax receipts would actually decline.  Arthur, to use your own curve, what you claim could be true, if there was some evidence that 35 percent yields optimal tax receipts.  But you don't have this evidence.

I digress.  In the past few days, Buffett upped his game and said he would match the entirety of contributions made by Republican lawmakers toward the debt, one-for-one.  Now that's what the fuck I'm talkin' about!  Now we'll see which of the deficit hawks are willing to play with the big boys.  And because McConnell pulled such a dick-move by telling Buffett he could send in a check, Buffett said he'd match McConnell's contributions 3-to-1. 

In sum, this exchange of ideas just "futhah" let's me know that the Republicans in office right now have no problem with the richest of us (which includes pretty much all of them) paying significantly less of their "earnings" to pay for our debts than folks like me.  We'll see how that works for them come election time. 

Nothing like climbing the ladder and then pulling it up behind you!