Warren Buffett scolds the D.C. establishment: “Stop coddling the super-rich”

War­ren Buf­fett, one of the wealth­i­est men in the world and one of the U.S.‘s most suc­cess­ful investors, has a must-read guest col­umn in the New York Times this morn­ing which takes Amer­i­ca’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship to task for not ask­ing the nation’s wealth­i­est fam­i­lies to pay their fair share in mem­ber­ship dues to our country.

It is one of the best op-ed pieces I’ve ever read. We at NPI can’t thank Mr. Buf­fett enough for tak­ing such a respon­si­ble, coura­geous stand in favor of pro­tect­ing our fed­er­al com­mon wealth. The open­ing alone is just beautiful:

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.

Buf­fett pulls no punch­es as he goes on:

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.

What’s real­ly strik­ing about this op-ed is how much care was put into high­light­ing the absur­di­ty that is our bro­ken tax sys­tem. Buf­fet­t’s piece res­onates because it com­bines a sto­ry — his sto­ry — with key num­bers that rein­force the point he’s try­ing to make. He does not write in a lan­guage that only an account or a lawyer would under­stand. His words are plain and author­i­ta­tive. At the same time, through­out his piece, he dis­plays an appre­ci­a­tion for the intel­lect of his audience.

His mes­sage to Con­gress and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is sim­ple: Start look­ing out for our com­mon wealth and the com­mon good, not about the well-being of Amer­i­ca’s most well-off. Insist that our nation’s most for­tu­nate give back so that our nation has a future. Remind the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States that it is patri­ot­ic to be a taxpayer.

As he brings his piece to a close, Buf­fett calls on the “super com­mit­tee” set up in the leg­is­la­tion that increased the debt ceil­ing to look at rais­ing rev­enue. He suggests:

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.

Con­gress should heed War­ren Buf­fet­t’s advice.

For too long, law­mak­ers have bought into the right wing’s eco­nom­ic lib­er­ty myth, which is pred­i­cat­ed on “trick­le-down” eco­nom­ics. This myth posits that if we cut tax­es on the wealthy, the wealthy will cre­ate more jobs. In real­i­ty, the only peo­ple who ben­e­fit when Con­gress cod­dles the super-rich are the super-rich.

There has nev­er been a bet­ter time to restore sense and fair­ness to our tax code. We at NPI join War­ren Buf­fett in renew­ing our call for our elect­ed lead­ers to end cost­ly and unnec­es­sary tax give­aways to mil­lion­aires and billionaires.