After reading the bizarre letters the NYTimes published in response to Warren Buffett's call to tax the "super-wealthy", I wanted to roll some of the ideas around, try them out, kick the tires.
Jack LeManager suggests that Buffett go ahead and send the government more money - nothing's stopping you! Then, setting up the absurd as a straw man, considers the value of taxing them at 100%. Even that pittance (ONLY! $938 billion) "would barely make a dent in the nation's multi trillion-dollar annual budget." OK, fine, but it would cover more than half of the deficit.... And if they'd paid closer to a fair share for the last 10 years (who said ANYTHING about 100%??), we'd have had lower deficits and lower interest payments and we'd be in better shape.
Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth (yay!) also suggests that Buffett could send more money to the government. (This is absurd and beside the point. A moronic argument. Hey! if you feel so strongly about stopping Rwandan genocide, you can fly over there and do it! Some things can be accomplished through individual action, others in concert. Dumb.) But he says that Buffett can allocate his money better than the government.
Really?? Can Buffett build roads? bridges? hospitals? schools? electrical grids? Can he finance an army? Should he? Aren't these things we should do as a government, not as individuals.
Roth get high marks for a lot of idiocy in a few words actually. The second paragraph asserts that Buffett was wrong ("higher tax rates do, in fact, stifle economic growth"). "In fact." Which facts? This is an assertion without evidence. Buffett points to the enormous economic growth from 1980 to 2000, when rates were higher. That's a fact, Mr. Roth.
Roth's final idiocy ... high tax rates don't affect Buffett's ability to manage his fortune, but "they do restrict the ability for average Americans to gain and amass their own personal fortunes." Deep breath. Oh if only the biggest problem for the "average American" was the amassing of a personal fortune. How about the amassing of a freaking job, Mr Roth? How about being able to drive over a bridge and know it won't collapse? How about decent education for our children, and useful Medicare before I turn 100 years old? Oy.
The other letters are pure ideology. Tyler Korn just thinks that capitalism means that people with capital shouldn't be taxed. Because it's capitalism. Edward Miller thinks that government is imperfect, so we shouldn't count on it.
This is a depressing non-debate.