Taxing the rich more will not fix a broken budget - it will waste even more money than what is wasted today.

Regarding "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich" By WARREN E. BUFFETT. Published: August 14, 2011

Mr. Buffett is perfectly capable of ignoring his tax breaks and I challenge him to publicly re-calculate his tax obligation without itemized tax exemptions and hand a check to President Obama.

This OP-ED is extremely disappointing for its lack of insight and it's a wonder this guy has any money left. The fact that Mr. Buffett paid "17.4 percent" of his income is irrelevant. It does not matter how much money he has left. The budget is not a function of his income and net-worth. It is a function of the costs of wars and social programs. Mr. Buffett also ignores that the root of our economic woes is not due to a lack of taxation, but rather an over-valuation of property, deregulation of banking, mismanagement by banking institutions, unchecked extensions of credit and debt on both personal and national levels. ...As well as, erratic commodity futures speculation and out of control labor and pension costs.

Mr. Buffett's ill-thought op-ed obscures the truth about taxation which is, simply, the federal budget is a mess. It's chaotic, illogical, and in instances down right reprehensible. Presidents and politicians both obscure the truth while making appeals to emotion rather than logic. It's not just the Republicans, it's also the Democrats. Where is individual accountability and responsibility in the Democrat's platform?

Mr. Buffett's $6,938,744 is a lot of money. His meager contribution is equivalent to the income taxes of 347 people who earned $50,000 to $70,000. There are dozens of towns across the USA that pay less as a whole than what Mr. Buffett paid. Nor does his number include his state income taxes, local taxes, property taxes, luxury taxes, sales taxes, investment taxes, business taxes, legislated fees, legislated required insurances, charitable contributions, nor social programs taxes.

The New York Times previously published an article stating that the rich 10 percent of the population pay 71 percent of federal income taxes collected. The middle class (60 percent of the population) split 29 percent (or 0.4 percent each per 1 percent ), and 30 percent of the population pay $0 net-income taxes. Yet despite all this math, the fact is that the budget requires dollars not percentages. Percentages of Mr. Buffet's income are meaningless to balancing the budget. Mr. Buffet didn't pay 17.4 percent of his income, he paid part of 71% of the total due.

Rather than coddling Mr. Buffett's quint notions of economics, we need to champion the one presidential candidate the news media consciously and admittedly ignores who isn't making a fallacious appeal to emotion, but an appeal to economic theory, logic, and an honest recount of the facts that led us into this troubled mess.

No where does Mr. Buffett call for fixing the budget, responsible spending, skill building nor education.

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