Taxes

Raising the debt limit is old news now,  and won't heat up again until we get close to the November 23 deadline for the Congressional "Super Committee" to find a solution for both houses to vote on.  Do you think that they will do any better than the Senate and House did on the first deadline?  I doubt it.  I doubt that they can be creative enough to come up with anything except the default solution already in place.

We can bombard them with email and phone calls, and they will not have the intelligence or courage to come up with another solution, such as raising taxes in some manner as part of the solution.  As Warren Buffett said in his recent NYT editorial:   


While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.  Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as "carried interest," thereby gaining a bargain 15% tax rate.  Others own stock index futures for ten minutes and have sixty percent of their gain taxed at fifteen percent, as if they'd been long-term investors.


These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species.  It's nice to have friends in high places.


He goes on to say that for 2010 he paid only 17.4% of his taxable income and that was lower than anyone who works for him.  Their tax burdens ranged from 33% to 41%.

The tax system rewards the rich, and the so-called "trickle down" effect did not work in the Reagan years and it does not work today.

Why are our elected officials afraid to tax the top 1% of Americans their fair share?  You should ask them.

Take care.