PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE
(Editor's note: The following is from Gazette Columnist Noble Collins:)
For the love of God, can anyone truly explain and justify the refusal of a large segment of people to understand how a balanced budget actually works?
Balance means balance. That means there are two sides to the equation.
How is that not understood?
The blind, obstinate refusal to consider increased revenues to help lower our debt is mind boggling.
It makes no sense whatsoever, and if carried through, will result in much worse problems than we face today.
Don't take MY word for it. Listen to one of the wealthiest and most successful businessman:
"Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers Monday to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments.
"'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,' The 80-year-old 'Oracle of Omaha' wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times.
"Buffett, one of the world's richest men and chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc , said his federal tax bill last year 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,' he said.
"Lawmakers engaged in a partisan battle over spending and taxes for more than three months before agreeing on August 2 to raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default.
"'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,' Buffett said.
"Buffett said higher taxes for the rich will not discourage investment.
"'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,' he said.
"'People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.'"
3 comments:
The answer to your opening question is easy: a large segment of the American population is either stupid or bigoted or both. Fortunately that segment, including much of the Tea Party, is roughly only 35 percent of the population - albeit a noisy 35 percent. It is incumbent on the rest of us to turn out in the next election and return the Democrats to power in the house. That is the only hope for a sane resolution to this budget mess.
Why not a fair flat tax on everyone? The rich would certainly pay more because they have more. The losers that milk the world for everything and pay nothing would have to pay as well. That is the solution.
The only population that is stupid is the part that feels the don't have to pay anything.
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
Thanks for the enlightening stroke of genius, All American. Is it original?
No one suggests that the wealthy will ever be legislated out of prosperity.
Nothing even close to that has been contemplated by anyone I have ever heard about. That is a defensive reflex, like a snail quickly retreating into its shell.
The wealthy owe their fair share as a percentage of taxes levied on the American People. That's all.
At present, the wealthiest people are getting tremendous tax breaks which they mostly didn't ask for nor really need. Their wealth is pretty much intact and in no peril from increased responsibility toward taxes.
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