Obama Millionaire's Tax: President To Seek New Tax Rate For Wealthy

 (I criticize Obama daily it seems, but I will give him props on this as long as he doesn't back off it and capitulate to the Corporatist Democrats and Republicans, Wall Street, corporate executives and billionaires like the Koch Bros.--jef)


By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press
Huffington Post - 9/17/11

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is expected to seek a new base tax rate for the wealthy to ensure that millionaires pay at least at the same percentage as middle income taxpayers.

A White House official said the proposal would be included in the president's proposal for long term deficit reduction that he will announce Monday. The official spoke anonymously because the plan has not been officially announced.

Obama is going to call it the "Buffett Rule" for Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that rich people like him pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers.

Buffett wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece last month that he and his rich friends "have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress."

The measure would be in addition to $447 billion in new tax revenue that Obama is seeking to pay for his short-term spending and tax cutting plan to jump start the economy.

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he would oppose tax increases to reduce the deficit. Boehner has urged Congress' deficit "supercommittee" to lay the groundwork for a broad overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

The panel has almost unlimited authority to recommend changes in federal spending and taxes and is working against a deadline of Nov. 23.

Boehner said the panel has "only one option, spending cuts and entitlement reforms," a reference to government benefit programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Any broad compromise that clears the bipartisan committee is almost certain to require Democratic agreement to savings from programs such as Social Security and Medicare, along with Republican acquiescence to additional revenues, although any such trade-offs are rarely discussed openly until the last possible moment in negotiations.

Obama's new tax proposal was first reported by The New York Times.

World of Class Warfare

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Even Donald Trump Says He's Willing to Pay Higher Taxes

Trump: ‘I’d be willing’ to pay more taxes

• Posted on 08.17.11
• By David Edwards

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said Monday that he would be willing to pay a higher tax rate but most oil companies would not because they are not patriotic.

“Warren Buffet made another splash with his op-ed in The New York Times, saying it’s just not right that he, a billionaire, pays 17 percent in taxes when his secretary and receptionist pay more,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos told Trump. “Isn’t he right about that?”

“There’s many different views on that,” Trump replied. “And I can also tell you that a lot of people will go elsewhere to do business if you start taxing them.”

“But 17 percent isn’t much for a billionaire,” Stephanopolous noted.

“But you’re going to have a mass exodus of business out of this country when you start taxing too high,” Trump explained. “But if you go back to certain companies, Exxon Mobil, the oil companies, for us to be subsidizing oil companies is absolutely insane.”

“Well it sounds like this is where you part company with the tea party and many in the House. You would be willing to close those loopholes on the oil company as part of a deficit [reduction plan],” the ABC host remarked.

“Oh, absolutely. I think the oil companies — and I’m a big tea party fan, and the tea party loves me and I get great polls in the tea party… I think when explained to the tea party, I can’t imagine anybody’s going to stick up for Exxon Mobil or some of these big oil companies that are making a fortune and paying relatively little in tax. And I think we should be taxing,” Trump answered.

“As part of a deficit reduction package, would you be willing the pay, assume for a second you pay Warren Buffet’s rate, 17 percent. Would you be willing to pay 25 percent instead of 17 percent?” Stephanopolous pressed.

“See, I would be willing to, George, but a lot of people wouldn’t be,” Trump admitted. “A lot of people would leave the country. I’m talking about big people, job-producing people. Would I be willing? Yeah, I’d be willing. I’d put country first… A lot of people will say, ‘No thank you, I’m going to Switzerland. I’m going to Germany. I’m going to here, I’m going to there.’”

“It’s very unpatriotic. They’re not patriotic. In many cases, they’re not patriotic. They’re business machines.”

Watch this video from ABC’s Good Morning America, broadcast Aug. 17, 2011.



Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

Fox host calls Warren Buffett a socialist

(Awesome! So Warren Buffet makes the comment that billionaires should pay higher taxes in order to set the economy in the right direction, and one of the many bird brains at FOX calls him a socialist--Warren "Mr. Capitalist" Buffet, as in BILLIONAIRE. 

This Bolling guy, I don't know--he seems to be even more "special" than the rest of that "touched" crew they got over there. Is it that they are lying but are too dumb to know they are lying? Or are they just plain stupid and easily manipulated by their bosses to say whatever is written in their script. Because you would have to be suffering from a serious head injury or advanced dementia to think Buffet is a socialist. This Bolling guy should walk away before he ends his career in a drastic and sad way once he realizes he's been an unparalleled tool used against his fellow citizens, like many of the other mean spirited, loud and dumb spinning heads FOX employs to execute their "poor people suck, rich people are cool--except Warren Buffet the socialist" propaganda strategy. The other two parrots chime in to Bolling's chorus there at the end, like some awful 'spoken word' musical without music. Unfunny and too dumb to be real.

Warren Buffet, billionaire socialist! That's so hilarious, you almost want to give Bolling credit for coming up with a bit!--jef)

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By Andrew Jones - RAW Replay
Posted on 08.16.11

In Eric Bolling’s mind, Warren Buffett may be a socialist now.

That skepticism was shared by the Fox Business News host after the renowned billionaire again stated in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the rich needed to pay more in taxes. In a heated debate with Columbia professor Marc Lamont Hill, Bolling was steadfast in slamming Buffet’s opinion and President Obama’s “socialist handbook.”

“What is this, is he completely a socialist and he’s playing into Mr. Obama’s hands of “Tax anyone who makes money’ and give it to people who don’t work,” Bolling asked.

Hill replied: “So basically anyone who disagrees with you is a socialist? Now Warren Buffett, one of the greatest profit makers in human history, is a socialist? I mean, come on. He’s simply saying people need to pay their fair share.”

That didn’t stop Bolling continue to display the usual conservative outrage on the idea of tax increases on the rich. After his guest compared Obama’s economic options to a revolver, Bolling added to the analogy.

“All of these bullets guys are in ‘the socialist handbook.’”

Warren Buffett: "Tax Me and All the Mega-Rich"

Monday, August 15, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers Monday to raise taxes on wealthier Americans to cut Washington's huge budget deficit, saying the move would not dampen investments or jobs.
 
In a New York Times opinion article, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway proposed a tax increase on Americans who make at least $1 million per year and an additional increase on those making $10 million or more.

"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 wrote.
"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."

The man known as the "Oracle of Omaha" said his federal tax rate was 17.4 percent last year, while some investment managers were taxed just 15 percent on income reaching into the billions. He then noted that the middle class is taxed up to 25 percent in its income bracket, along with "heavy" payroll taxes.

In contrast, Buffett recalled "far higher" taxes rates for the rich in the 1980s and 1990s, and yet nearly 40 million jobs were added from 1980 to 2000.

"You know what's happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation," he said.

"People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off."

Americans are losing faith with Congress's ability to tackle the country's financial woes, Buffett warned, calling for "immediate, real and very substantial" action.

A protracted partisan battle between lawmakers culminated in a last-minute deal on August 2 to raise the $14.3 trillion US debt ceiling and narrowly avoid a US default.

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

Rich Running Scared?

(I hardly think so.--jef)

***

Saturday, August 07, 2010 – by Staff Report

Billionaires giving half their fortune to charity ... They have devoted almost all their time and energy to building up fortunes worth billions. And now they are going to give most of it away. ... Star Wars director George Lucas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hilton hotels owner Barron Hilton are among those who will provide an estimated £250bn. Others pledging fortunes include media mogul Ted Turner, fashion director Diane Von Furstenberg, David Rockefeller, the heir to the Rockefeller fortune, and construction billionaire Eli Broad. The unprecedented commitment was brokered by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett (pictured together left) over a series of intimate dinners. They set up The Giving Pledge, which asks billionaires to make a 'moral commitment' to give away at least 50% of their wealth to charity either during their lifetime or after their death. So far 40 have signed up. -- UK / This Is Money

Dominant Social Theme: The most admirable thing ever.

Free-Market Analysis: We've watched this story unfold and are quite taken by its admirable qualities. There is something amazing about watching so many important people come together to give so much money to worthy causes. That this cavalcade of generosity would be led by such luminaries as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet only adds to its impressiveness. These individuals could be out golfing instead of extracting billions from their friends and acquaintances for charity.

Obviously there is a dominant social theme at work here. We would venture to say that it is along these lines: "Not only are Western (especially Anglo-American) billionaires among the smartest that you will find, they are also among the most generous and caring." In this article, then, we will reflect on this giving and probe its causes. Of course, perhaps there is nothing more to this Giving Pledge than a belated realization that those with great blessings ought to give back proportionately. Sometimes, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a rose is just a rose.

So let us proceed then with the understanding that sometimes generosity is "just generosity." And certainly acts of generosity, without doubt, are being formulated within the parameters of this program. But being instrument of power-elite analysis, we need to ask WHY? As in "why now?" Why have powerful billionaires (at the behest of the power elite itself?) gotten together in 2010 to announce to the world that they are giving their money away? Why didn't they decide to do so in 2008, or 1998 for that matter? Has something changed? Are their forces at work (a generosity bug?) today that were not present a year ago, or ten years ago? And if there is a reason, what is it telling us about the society's larger trends?

We would argue, in fact, that there is a reason. As dedicated meme watchers, we have seen the power elite (and we don't necessarily include all generous billionaires among them) try to grapple with the reality that the financial system itself is radically tilted toward institutional gestures. When the financial crisis became severe in 2008, it was the big banks and securities firms that for the most got bailed out. Homeowners and others, especially in America, grappled with their burgeoning debts without the help of money printing.

While this is perhaps to be expected, as we have pointed out before, the spectacle of large institutions being laved with funds while the "little people" were left parched and hopeless, was at root immoral. In one poisonous fortnight, the reality of the financial system struck home to people in a way that it never had before. A very skilled meme watcher (as we have related before) brought this point home to us, sending us what we consider to be a seminal feedback on this issue. What he was basically saying was that the Internet had provided a window wherein people could see as they never had before how the system really worked.

In one instant, the reality of the system became crystal clear. The money that the elite was disbursing may have stabilized the financial system, but why was that money only flowing in one direction, people suddenly began to wonder. Not only that, but we must believe that many, probably for the first time, began to realize however foggily that the money that was given away was being "manufactured" – that it was being printed out of nothing and directed toward targets self-selected by those doing the printing. We wrote an article about it ourselves entitled, "Have the immoral actions of central bankers precipitated the decline of the West." Here is some of what we wrote:

And so it begins. You have seen the essential immorality of the system. You have felt it deep in the gut, just the way they did once they began to read Bibles (courtesy of the Gutenberg press) 500 years ago and began realizing that the Roman Catholic Church was profoundly immoral -- that its entire ethic (you can buy your way into heaven) was built on a kind of lie. Just as society is today. Yes, he's right. This financial crisis and the "outside the box thinking" (President Obama's term) of Ben Bernanke and others has not just doomed the elite's dominant social themes, it has probably doomed the freakin' CIVILIZATION.

Even stranger, Bernanke and the rest have not yet likely realized this. They are too busy patting themselves on the back. Do Bernanke et al. really believe that the average joe is awestruck and thankful for their chicanery. No, the average joe has suddenly realized that he lives in a society where a few people control trillions while he controls thousands. This is not just going to lead to a breakdown of society, over time it is going to lead to a meltdown of western civ.

Click here to read more: Have the Immoral Actions of Central bankers Precipitated the Decline of the West?

Do we need to belabor the point? This Giving Pledge from our point of view may constitute a direct counter-attack by the powers-that-be on the perception of unfairness that was made manifest by the egregious central banking bailouts of institutional cronies during the depths of the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve in particular, which created tidal waves of cash at the time, has fought very hard to withhold information about just who funds went to and the amounts that were sent.

We do believe the powers-that-be attempt to control public opinion (and thus the public) through various promotions, most of them fear-based. In this case the promotion is not fear-based and has something of a rushed quality about it. The cause-and-effect in our humble opinion is obvious however. Whether it will have the requisite impact is another question. We tend to doubt it.

It is important to note however, because it does tend to show (if one accepts our interpretation) that those at the top of the heap are getting the message about how things are being perceived by the plebes down below. The trouble is that people, if they have already made up their minds, are not apt to be swayed by such a spectacle. The damage has already been done and we would argue that dramatic Acts such as these may have actually do more harm than good, given that people are already cynical about the system.

Of course, being cynical ourselves, we don't believe for instant that all this charity will in some sense ease the plight of those who are injured financially or otherwise. For one thing, the massive charities and foundations of the West today are run by the same power elite that runs the financial system and has orchestrated the current problems of Western economic society. Secondly, the program smacks of a kind of hold-up.

Yes, we visualize it as a sort of elegant blackmail in which a billionaire who has somehow resisted becoming part of the elite's one-world promotion, gets a perfumed letter asking that half of his or her wealth be directed to a "worthy" cause. These worthy causes, being organized by the elite, will likely only further benefit the ultimate goal of further promoting and strengthening Western-style regulatory democracy to the detriment of those who want to live their lives without high taxes, high inflation and endless regulatory encumbrances.

Conclusion: The Giving Pledge is a very clever promotion from our point of view, and illustrates the elite's penchant for never letting a crisis go to waste. It may, however, prove "too clever by half" as the saying goes. Its ultimate importance may have more to do with its rushed nature and the insight it offers us into the current mindset of the very wealthy and the measures they are willing to take to take to shore up their aggregate public personas.

The Conscience of the Very, Very Rich: Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller and ...

The Great Marginalization
By CARL GINSBURG

Of all the farcical notions put forth during this time of high farce, casting America as “broke” places way up there on the list, as trillions of dollars are being stockpiled in the face of a national downsizing and its attendant growth in misery. Here we sit, a captive national audience to the president’s seemingly daily farce, “We are all in this together”.

Instances of hoarding in U.S. history are many, but the current example stands out for its enduring quality, as Congress reaches deep into corporate pockets, with occasional forays into legislation of the extreme incremental variety. Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months--- hardly the recipe for togetherness.

More farce: that irresponsibility is the root of poverty, a stalwart theme in American political theater, with the latest reminder from Treasury Secretary Geithner in a New York Times op-ed this month, saluting Americans for “saving more” and “borrowing more responsibly”. These instructions from the government’s top economic point man were imparted in the face of continued wage stagnation, high foreclosure rates and new forms of financial foolery.

Now enter stage left: the ”Great Givers”, they come in the form of American billionaires proposing to give away half their wealth. Beware strangers bearing gifts.

The billionaire pledge – a broadside of noblesse oblige – was formulated by none other than two of the planet’s leading mega-billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two American moneybags are imploring fellow prophets of profit to address global suffering by earmarking not less than fifty per cent of personal wealth for charity. First discussed at a dinner in May 2009, the specifics are just now surfacing thanks to Carol J. Loomis in the June 16 issue of Fortune.

According to Loomis, Buffett and Gates, who share a commitment to charity and to the Democratic Party, summoned a group of billionaires to dinner in New York City. David Rockefeller -- whose granddad cornered the market in kerosene, then gasoline – played host and invited this billionaire boys club to share their calling. Two subsequent dinners were held, expanding the group invited to take the plunge to about thirty. Areas of charitable concern shared by America’s very richest, Loomis says, include “education, culture, hospitals and health, the environment, public policy, the poor generally.” Generally.

Details are scarce because participating billionaires were promised privacy -- privacy being a constitutional commitment to enormous wealth. One detail that did get out was the name Buffett assigned his file on this new initiative: “Great Givers”.

It would appear that the ability to give greatly stops at the factory door. Buffett’s billions, for example, include holdings in Wal-Mart, a company fresh from victory in Chicago where, after years of resistance by community forces, construction of its first mega-store was just given a green light. Times as they are, with “jobless recovery” taken to new heights and millions looking for work, Wal-Mart offered a wage of $8.75 per hour to seal the deal. The amount Wal-Mart agreed to pony up is 50 cents over the Illinois minimum; still, at under $20,000 per year gross, no one would argue that it constitutes a living wage. Such are the elements of Great Giving.

Buffett’s profits are not tied exclusively to low wages stateside; his Wal-Mart earnings are a result of paying the lowest garment wages in the world, according to labor rights advocates. Wal-Mart has started moving some of its garment factories out of China, where garment workers have been making the princely sum of $147 per month, to Bangladesh, where monthly earnings total $64, the lowest wage of its kind. In this world of farce these wages are linked to Bangladesh’s low literacy rate—55 percent. Had workers only acquired educations, the master thespians of farce would say, wages would be higher.

It’s not fair, however, to solely tie Buffett’s billions to uneducated Bangladeshis.

This Great Giver also bought a stake in Goldman Sachs and its Ivy-educated money managers, doing his part to rescue the financial system by transferring $5 billion to America’s gilded investment bank (in exchange for a 10 percent per annum return). Yes, this is the same Goldman that last month admitted “a mistake” in selling subprime mortgage bonds destined to collapse; the same Goldman that set aside $9.3 billion the first half of this year for salary and bonuses; and, yes, the same Goldman that orchestrated speculation in the world wheat crop with disastrous results, according to Frederick Kaufman’s cover story in the July issue of Harper’s, “The Food Bubble.” Undoubtedly, Buffett’s due diligence uncovered the following when sizing up the Goldman investment:

“The history of food took an ominous turn in 1991, at a time when no one was paying much attention. That was the year Goldman Sachs decided our daily bread might make an excellent investment…. [W]ith accustomed care and precision, Goldman’s analysts went about transforming food into a concept. They selected eighteen commodifiable ingredients and contrived a financial elixir that included cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs, and a variety or two of wheat…. They weighted the investment value of each element… that could be expressed as single manifestation, to be known thenceforward as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index….

“Since Goldman’s innovation, hundreds of billions of new dollars had overwhelmed the actual supply of and actual demand for wheat….

“In 2008, for the first time since such statistics have been kept, the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward. The ranks of the hungry had increased in a single year, the most abysmal increase in all of human history.”
(pp. 27-28)

Clarifying what the Great Giver Buffett means by the poor generally.

Buffett’s Goldman investment remains solid, as the SEC fined Goldman for its “mistake” what amounted to little more than petty cash -- $550 million. It was, according to finance professor Charles Geisst, “like passing around the church collection plate and collecting a few extra bucks for sins.” Geisst summed it up this way: “This is unlikely to change much at all. I think it will be business as usual right away.” More money for Buffett to give greatly.

Warren Buffett’s fellow Giver of Great Gifts, Bill Gates, has diversified his holdings as well. But his tens of billions result chiefly from the company he co-founded and led for decades, Microsoft, where profits remain very strong. “Microsoft Still Earnings Powerhouse,” barked the headline in USA Today, July 23, 2010. In its fledgling years, profits on Gates’ software were reportedly 70 per cent annually. Otherwise, after all, you don’t make upwards of $50 billion charging cost plus five percent.

Current returns for this scion of the responsible class were reported at 48 per cent, as Windows 7, the latest software batch out of Microsoft, led the company’s product pack. “It certainly shows that Office and Windows franchises are as strong as ever and delivering huge revenue,” analyst Brendan Barnicle told the Wall Street Journal recently. Indeed, annual sales have hit new records year after year, tripling to $62.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Net income for Gates’ Microsoft grew from $9.4 billion per year a decade ago to $24.1 billion this year.

Another way to gauge Gates’s billions is by catching a glimpse of the multitudes of students priced out of the computer market – thanks in part to that Great Giver’s expensive software – lined up daily at community college libraries for some free access to computers, each machine an expression of Gates’ creative commitment to profit in the +40 percent range – a gift Gates gave himself that keeps on giving. As Gates told Fortune: “The diversity of American giving is part of its beauty.”