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Warren Buffett's Tax Plan

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We’re talking about billionaire Warren Buffet’s call for higher taxes on the rich.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, gestures in Omaha, Neb. (AP)
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, gestures in Omaha, Neb. (AP)

Super investor Warren Buffet is one rich American. The “Oracle of Omaha.” Worth maybe $50 billion. Third richest man in the world.

And this month, Warren Buffet called for higher taxes for the rich. Right now. Higher taxes for Americans who make a million dollars a year. Even higher for those making ten million-plus.

And an end to special treatment for capital gains -– investment earnings. Treat them like regular workingman earnings, said Buffet. Stop coddling, he said, the rich. Should we do it?

This hour On Point: debating Warren Buffet’s call for higher taxes on the rich.
-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Stephen Moore, editorial board member and senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal.

Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University and contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times.

James Stewart, pulitzer-prize winning reporter who writes the “Common Sense” column for the Business Day section of The New York Times.

From Tom's Reading List

The New York Times "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."

Wall Street Journal "Now that I'm 72 years old, I can look forward to paying a significant portion of my accumulated wealth in estate taxes to the federal government and, depending on the state I live in at the time, to that state government as well."

The New York Times "Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary and the 19 other people who work in his office. He pays a much lower rate than I do, and, I suspect, lower than nearly everyone reading this column. So, no doubt, do a long list of American billionaires, including Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone and the hedge fund king John Paulson."

The Wall Street Journal "Barney Kilgore, the man who made the Wall Street Journal into a national publication, was once asked why so many rich people favored higher taxes. That's easy, he replied. They already have their money."

This program aired on August 24, 2011.

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