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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (7176)	6/23/2009 4:03:07 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

There were so many 'ifs' and caveats in those posts that I'll believe what Buffett himself said. Buffet himself didn't provide any real data. Data with "ifs and caveats" is a lot more precise. Sure I could be like Buffet skip the "if's and caveats" and just boldly assert something with almost no support. I could even arrange some highly structured cherry picked way of measuring things to "prove" that I was right. But that would be at best worthless and at worst dishonest. The only way Buffet can "show" that he pays less is by not looking at the real total tax burden that he and his employee face. If he defers taxes on capital gains but pays them later, he still is taxed just later. If the companies he owns pay taxes, then he bears the tax burden. If he owns tax free bonds, then the interest he forgoes is the equivalent of his tax burden. Buffet counts none of these things. He mentions her higher marginal rate (with his next dollar being capital gains, and her's presumably wages/salary/ordinary income), but she wouldn't pay that rate on most of her income (unless her salary is really huge, and then she would be in the top 1% that everyone seems to want to tax more). Also even if his secretary has some very unusual situation where she pays a lot of extra taxes, that isn't an argument that supports most calls for higher taxes. People think secretary and think she's has a low income, but personal secretaries of CEOs of large companies don't have a low income. Most proposed, and most relatively recent historical tax increases would hit her more than him. She is a highly compensated worker. Hitting the top 10% to "help out the poor" (or the middle class or those right at the middle) hits her. The class warfare rhetoric in her name, is more likely to hurt her than help her.