Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Optical illusions
As if this world isn't wierd enough already! Spend some time here and wonder what else about life is an illusion?
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Medicare for all
Two appellate judges in Atlanta - one appointed by Bill Clinton and one by George H.W. Bush - have just decided the Constitution doesn't allow the federal government to require individuals to buy health insurance. The decision is a major defeat for the White House. The so-called "individual mandate" is a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's 2010 health care reform law, scheduled to go into effect in 2014.
The whole idea of the law is to pool health risks. Only if everyone buys insurance can insurers afford to cover people with pre-existing conditions or pay the costs of catastrophic diseases.
The issue is headed for the Supreme Court (another appellate court has upheld the law's constitutionality), where the prognosis isn't good. The court's Republican-appointed majority has not exactly distinguished itself with progressive views.
Chalk up another one for the GOP, outwitting and outflanking the president and the Democrats.
Remember the health care debate? Congressional Republicans refused to consider a single-payer system that would automatically pool risks. They wouldn't even consider giving people the option of buying into it.
The president and the Democrats caved, as they have on almost everything. They came up with a compromise that kept health care in the hands of private insurance companies.
The only way to spread the risk in such a system is to require everyone to buy insurance.
Which is exactly what the two appellate judges in Atlanta object to. The Constitution, in their view, doesn't allow the federal government to compel citizens to buy something. "Congress may regulate commercial actors," they write. "But what Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die."
Most Americans seem to agree. According to polls, 60 percent of the public opposes the individual mandate. Many on the right believe it a threat to individual liberty. Many on the left object to being required to buy something from a private company.
Had the president and the Democrats stuck to their guns during the health care debate and insisted on Medicare for all, or at least a public option, they wouldn't now be facing the possible unraveling of the new health care law.
After all, Social Security and Medicare - the nation's two most popular safety nets - require every working American to "buy" them. The purchase happens automatically in the form of a deduction from everyone's paychecks.
But because Social Security and Medicare are government programs, they don't feel like mandatory purchases. They're more like tax payments, which is what they are - payroll taxes.
There's no question payroll taxes are constitutional, because there's no doubt that the federal government can tax people in order to finance particular public benefits.
Americans don't mind mandates in the form of payroll taxes for Social Security or Medicare. In fact, both programs are so popular even conservative Republicans were heard to shout "Don't take away my Medicare!" at rallies opposed to the new health care law.
Requiring citizens to buy something from a private company is entirely different. If Congress can require citizens to buy health insurance from the private sector, reasoned the two appellate judges in Atlanta, what's to stop it from requiring citizens to buy anything else? If the law were to stand, "a future Congress similarly would be able to articulate a unique problem ... compelling Americans to purchase a certain product from a private company."
Other federal judges in district courts - one in Virginia and another in Florida - have struck down the law on similar grounds. They said the federal government has no more constitutional authority requiring citizens to buy insurance than requiring them to buy broccoli or asparagus. (The Florida judge referred to broccoli, the Virginia judge to asparagus.) Social Security and Medicare aren't broccoli or asparagus. They're as American as hot dogs and apple pie.
The Republican strategy should now be clear: Privatize anything that might otherwise be a public program financed by tax dollars. Then argue in the courts that any mandatory purchase of it is unconstitutional because it exceeds the government's authority. And rally the public against the requirement.
Remember this next time you hear Republican candidates touting Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's plan for turning Medicare into vouchers for seniors to buy private health insurance.
So what do Obama and the Democrats do if the individual mandate in the new health care law gets struck down by the Supreme Court?
Immediately propose what they should have proposed right from the start - universal health care based on Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes. The public will be behind them, as will the courts.
Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future." He blogs at www.robertreich.org. To comment, go to sfgate.com/chronicle
Original.
Friday, August 19, 2011
LG goes green
It's a step in the right direction. Whether true or not.
Have you heard the news? Carbonfund.org has joined LG Electronics in an inspiring new partnership.
This marks the first time LCD TV, LCD monitor, refrigerator, clothes washer, LED lamp or solar panel products have undergone the rigorous life cycle analysis process to earn Carbonfund.org's third-party certified label.
So what makes this inspiring? In addition to our carbon-reducing projects, Carbonfund.org believes industry leadership is key in the fight against climate change. We're proud to include LG Electronics among an impressive list of businesses that provide carbon-neutral products to consumers and can't wait to see green LG appliances on shelves across the nation.
Because like LG's motto says: Life's Good When it's Green.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
21 Reasons...
Rick Perry's Texas is a complete disaster? Well, I don't know about "complete" disaster, but Texas is in pretty sad shape in a lot of categories. But that big Texas swagger overcompensates for a lot of shortcomings.
Ever since Perry officially announced his candidacy for President, there has been a flood of critical examinations of Perry and Texas. I hope that it continues. If the criticism dies down, people will forget and just might elect this idiot.
We Texans warned the rest of the nation about Bush, and Gore got a million more votes than Bush did, but we all know that the Supreme Court had to step in to give the presidency to Bush. And then Bush stole it again in 2004, but we didn't riot at the time, so .... we see what happened to the nation. Near-collapse.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, nothing has been done to fix the electronic voting machines, so anyone can win elections, depending upon who TPTB want to have in office. It's absurd to me that we cannot trust our own votes any longer. It's not really a democracy if your choices are made for you.
21 Reasons Rick Perry's Texas Is a Complete Disaster
Third World status – the real promise of a Rick Perry administration – shouldn't be a goal to which the United States aspires.
Rick Perry's road to the White House will be paved with spin and blatant lies of omission. He's basing his entire campaign on a single data-point: Texas, with 10 percent of the country's population, has produced 37 percent of net new jobs in the U.S. since the recovery.
That kernel of truth, as I noted recently, is mostly a result of a massive increase in the state's population – much of it due to Hispanic immigration. Texas' unemployment rate has actually risen even as those jobs were being created. Texas also leads the nation in creating crappy minimum wage jobs without benefits – the number of minimum wage workers increased by 150 percent between 2007 and 2010.
He also lucked into a boom in energy prices in his oil and gas-rich state – another factor having nothing to do with his governance.
Under Perry, endless tax breaks for politically connected Texas corporations helped create a massive budget deficit that Perry first addressed with federal stimulus funds – money from a program he decried as a “misguided” desire “to spend our children’s inheritance” -- and then by cutting spending on education and the state's already threadbare social services to the bone. With the exception of a few economic basket-cases like Mississippi, Texas is way ahead of the pack in the race to the bottom.
Rick Perry's line on this is obviously quite different. In announcing his candidacy last weekend, the governor bragged that “we have led Texas based on some just really pretty simple guiding principles. One is don’t spend all of the money. Two is keeping the taxes low and under control. Three is you have your regulatory climate fair and predictable. Four is reform the legal system so frivolous lawsuits don’t paralyze employers that are trying to create jobs. Over the years, we have followed this recipe to produce the strongest economy in the nation.”
This talking-point is being echoed across the conservative message machine. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that “the core impulse of Obamanomics is to make America less like Texas and more like California, with more government, more unions, more central planning, higher taxes.” In May, Newt Gingrich told Fox News host Sean Hannity, "I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”
It's a terrifying thought. Looking at the number of jobs a state has added in isolation is deeply misleading; we don't only face a jobs crisis in this nation, we face a crisis of rising economic insecurity. The American middle class is embattled, and keeping up with population growth by adding jobs serving up fast-food and greeting Walmart shoppers doesn't help ameliorate the kind of economic pain millions of Americans are suffering.
So, to add some perspective, let's take a broader look at how Texans are faring under Rick Perry's watch. (Several of the following items were compiled by Peter Montgomery at Right-Wing Watch.)
1. Texas leads the nation in the percentage of its population without health insurance (2010).
2. Only one state covered a smaller share of its poor population with Medicaid (PDF).
3. It's also number 1 in the percentage of children who lack insurance (2009).
4. Texas ranks dead last in the number of women who receive early prenatal care (2010).
5. It has the sixth highest rate of infectious diseases in America (2010).
6. It ranked 35th in the share of its children being immunized (2010)...
7. ...And 40th in overall health (2010).
8. Those numbers shouldn't come as a surprise – Texas had the ninth lowest level of health care spending per person (2010).
9. Texas ranked 36th in the nation in terms of its high school graduation rate (2010).
10. It has the lowest share of the population aged 25 and older holding a high-school diploma of any state (2008).
11. Its students have the sixth lowest SAT scores in the country (2008).
12. But Texas ranks fourth in terms of teen pregnancies (2005).
13. It's got the 16th highest crime rate (2010).
14. It ranks 17th in occupational fatalities (2010).
15. It's tied (with Missouri) for 19th in terms of the share of its citizens requiring food-stamps (2009).
16. It leads the nation in the amount of recognized carcinogens released into the air (2002).
17. Has the fourth highest amount of toxic chemicals in the environment (2002).
18. Texas’ per capita income growth was the eighth slowest of any state in the country between 1998 and 2008.
19. It ranks 47th median household net worth (averaged from 2007 to 2009).
20. Only seven states have a higher percentage of children in poverty (2010), and ...
21. ... Only nine states have a higher percentage of people of all ages living below the poverty line (2008).
This is what conservative governance leads to – slow growth, poor social outcomes, greater inequality and fewer protections for workers and the environment.
And that is indeed what the right would like to see imposed on the nation as a whole.
In March, Republican staffers on Congress's Joint Economic Committee released the study responding to criticism that the deep public sector cuts they advocated would derail an already anemic “recovery.” The paper called for “decreasing the number and compensation of government workers,” which the staffers said would spur job creation because “a smaller government workforce increases the available supply of educated, skilled workers for private firms, thus lowering labor costs.”
So, a central plank in the GOP's economic recovery plan is to flood the market with yet more unemployed people in order to drive wages (which have stagnated for an extended period) further down.
In theory, an unhealthy, poorly educated population earning poverty wages in a country with low taxes, minimal environmental regulation and crappy public services would indeed lead multinationals to create more jobs here at home, but Third World status – the real promise of a Rick Perry administration – shouldn't be a goal to which the United States aspires.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America.
Original.
Ever since Perry officially announced his candidacy for President, there has been a flood of critical examinations of Perry and Texas. I hope that it continues. If the criticism dies down, people will forget and just might elect this idiot.
We Texans warned the rest of the nation about Bush, and Gore got a million more votes than Bush did, but we all know that the Supreme Court had to step in to give the presidency to Bush. And then Bush stole it again in 2004, but we didn't riot at the time, so .... we see what happened to the nation. Near-collapse.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, nothing has been done to fix the electronic voting machines, so anyone can win elections, depending upon who TPTB want to have in office. It's absurd to me that we cannot trust our own votes any longer. It's not really a democracy if your choices are made for you.
21 Reasons Rick Perry's Texas Is a Complete Disaster
Third World status – the real promise of a Rick Perry administration – shouldn't be a goal to which the United States aspires.
Rick Perry's road to the White House will be paved with spin and blatant lies of omission. He's basing his entire campaign on a single data-point: Texas, with 10 percent of the country's population, has produced 37 percent of net new jobs in the U.S. since the recovery.
That kernel of truth, as I noted recently, is mostly a result of a massive increase in the state's population – much of it due to Hispanic immigration. Texas' unemployment rate has actually risen even as those jobs were being created. Texas also leads the nation in creating crappy minimum wage jobs without benefits – the number of minimum wage workers increased by 150 percent between 2007 and 2010.
He also lucked into a boom in energy prices in his oil and gas-rich state – another factor having nothing to do with his governance.
Under Perry, endless tax breaks for politically connected Texas corporations helped create a massive budget deficit that Perry first addressed with federal stimulus funds – money from a program he decried as a “misguided” desire “to spend our children’s inheritance” -- and then by cutting spending on education and the state's already threadbare social services to the bone. With the exception of a few economic basket-cases like Mississippi, Texas is way ahead of the pack in the race to the bottom.
Rick Perry's line on this is obviously quite different. In announcing his candidacy last weekend, the governor bragged that “we have led Texas based on some just really pretty simple guiding principles. One is don’t spend all of the money. Two is keeping the taxes low and under control. Three is you have your regulatory climate fair and predictable. Four is reform the legal system so frivolous lawsuits don’t paralyze employers that are trying to create jobs. Over the years, we have followed this recipe to produce the strongest economy in the nation.”
This talking-point is being echoed across the conservative message machine. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that “the core impulse of Obamanomics is to make America less like Texas and more like California, with more government, more unions, more central planning, higher taxes.” In May, Newt Gingrich told Fox News host Sean Hannity, "I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”
It's a terrifying thought. Looking at the number of jobs a state has added in isolation is deeply misleading; we don't only face a jobs crisis in this nation, we face a crisis of rising economic insecurity. The American middle class is embattled, and keeping up with population growth by adding jobs serving up fast-food and greeting Walmart shoppers doesn't help ameliorate the kind of economic pain millions of Americans are suffering.
So, to add some perspective, let's take a broader look at how Texans are faring under Rick Perry's watch. (Several of the following items were compiled by Peter Montgomery at Right-Wing Watch.)
1. Texas leads the nation in the percentage of its population without health insurance (2010).
2. Only one state covered a smaller share of its poor population with Medicaid (PDF).
3. It's also number 1 in the percentage of children who lack insurance (2009).
4. Texas ranks dead last in the number of women who receive early prenatal care (2010).
5. It has the sixth highest rate of infectious diseases in America (2010).
6. It ranked 35th in the share of its children being immunized (2010)...
7. ...And 40th in overall health (2010).
8. Those numbers shouldn't come as a surprise – Texas had the ninth lowest level of health care spending per person (2010).
9. Texas ranked 36th in the nation in terms of its high school graduation rate (2010).
10. It has the lowest share of the population aged 25 and older holding a high-school diploma of any state (2008).
11. Its students have the sixth lowest SAT scores in the country (2008).
12. But Texas ranks fourth in terms of teen pregnancies (2005).
13. It's got the 16th highest crime rate (2010).
14. It ranks 17th in occupational fatalities (2010).
15. It's tied (with Missouri) for 19th in terms of the share of its citizens requiring food-stamps (2009).
16. It leads the nation in the amount of recognized carcinogens released into the air (2002).
17. Has the fourth highest amount of toxic chemicals in the environment (2002).
18. Texas’ per capita income growth was the eighth slowest of any state in the country between 1998 and 2008.
19. It ranks 47th median household net worth (averaged from 2007 to 2009).
20. Only seven states have a higher percentage of children in poverty (2010), and ...
21. ... Only nine states have a higher percentage of people of all ages living below the poverty line (2008).
This is what conservative governance leads to – slow growth, poor social outcomes, greater inequality and fewer protections for workers and the environment.
And that is indeed what the right would like to see imposed on the nation as a whole.
In March, Republican staffers on Congress's Joint Economic Committee released the study responding to criticism that the deep public sector cuts they advocated would derail an already anemic “recovery.” The paper called for “decreasing the number and compensation of government workers,” which the staffers said would spur job creation because “a smaller government workforce increases the available supply of educated, skilled workers for private firms, thus lowering labor costs.”
So, a central plank in the GOP's economic recovery plan is to flood the market with yet more unemployed people in order to drive wages (which have stagnated for an extended period) further down.
In theory, an unhealthy, poorly educated population earning poverty wages in a country with low taxes, minimal environmental regulation and crappy public services would indeed lead multinationals to create more jobs here at home, but Third World status – the real promise of a Rick Perry administration – shouldn't be a goal to which the United States aspires.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America.
Original.
Warren Buffett
One of the richest people in America, Warren Buffett is practically PLEADING with Congress to raise his taxes. How can it be fair to tax the ultra-rich at lower rates than the lower- and middle-classes? But I guess, to Republicans, fairness has nothing to do with it. They just want the money. As much as they can get. Screw everybody else.
Raising the tax rates on the wealthiest Americans is about the easiest fix to help out our budget imbalance. It's such a no-brainer that Congress' refusal to do it is breeding massive resentment. A large majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy. Only the Republicans stand in the way. And weak-kneed Democrats.
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
By WARREN E. BUFFETT
OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
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 getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 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.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — 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.
If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
I didn’t refuse, nor did others. 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. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.
The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)
I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.
Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. 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. That feeling can create its own reality.
Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.
But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
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.
Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.
Original.
Raising the tax rates on the wealthiest Americans is about the easiest fix to help out our budget imbalance. It's such a no-brainer that Congress' refusal to do it is breeding massive resentment. A large majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy. Only the Republicans stand in the way. And weak-kneed Democrats.
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
By WARREN E. BUFFETT
OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
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 getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 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.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — 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.
If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
I didn’t refuse, nor did others. 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. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.
The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)
I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.
Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. 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. That feeling can create its own reality.
Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.
But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
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.
Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.
Original.
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