Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

Warren Buffet, the billionaire investor and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway wrote an op-ed piece that was published today in The New York Times that he doesn’t want to be “coddled” by Congress and says that wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes. He also says that higher taxes on the wealthy do not dampen job growth.

You talk about…”from the horse’s mouth!”

“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,” wrote Buffett, who has mentioned in past interviews that the rich should pay higher taxes.

Warren Buffet said that his 2010 federal tax bill, which included income and payroll taxes, was $6,938,744.

“That sounds like a lot of money,” wrote the Omaha, Neb.-based billionaire. “But what I paid was only 17.4% of my taxable income – and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office.”

Who am I to argue with Warren Buffet about MONEY? I’ve suggested, more than once, that the government should tax the rich.

Buffet said that some investment managers were taxed only 15% on billions in income. The middle class, on the other hand, has an income bracket of up to 25%. Buffet noted that between 1980 and 2000, when the tax rate for the rich was higher than it is now, some 40 million jobs were created.

“You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation,” he wrote.

“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” he wrote. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”

Buffet proposed tha Congress impose a higher tax on millionaires and an even higher rate on those making at least $10 million each year. The CNN article has a video of Buffet.

As I said before, who am I to argue with Warren Buffet about money?

(Buffet has pledged to give away more than 99% of his wealth during his lifetime or at death.)

-Bill at

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