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Buffett: My plan was not the 'Buffett Rule' By Alicia M. Cohn - 09/30/11 11:01 AM ET Billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett, who has become the face of President Obama's $447 billion jobs creation legislation, said Friday that he might not agree with everything in the bill. Obama has called for higher tax rates on millionaires as part of his proposed deficit-reduction plan. Obama’s proposed tax increase, called the “Buffett Rule” in a nod to Buffett’s call for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, would apply to those earning annual incomes of $1 million or more. However, Buffett said he...

Maybe only a really, really rich guy can credibly make the case for why the wealthy should be asked to pay more in taxes. You can't accuse a big capitalist of "class warfare." That's why the right wing despises Warren Buffett and is trying so hard to shut him up. Militant conservatives are effective because they are absolutely shameless. Many of the same people who think the rich should be free to spend unlimited sums influencing our politics without having to disclose anything are now asking Buffett to make his tax returns public. I guess if you're indifferent to consistency,...

Mayor Bloomberg Sunday slammed billionaire investor Warren Buffett's call for higher taxes on the super-rich, dismissing it as political theater. "The Buffett thing is just theatrics," Hizzoner said speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press." In August, Buffett - known as "The Oracle from Omaha" - said he forked over a little less than $7 million in taxes last year, which added up to roughly 17% of his income. That percentage was lower than the secretaries in his office, he pointed out. Bloomberg said Buffett's use of the figures was a bit of a smoke and mirrors game. "If Warren Buffett...

(Video of Buffett secretary at link - http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/09/23/gbtv-exclusive-buffetts-secretary/)A disturbing sight but great information to debunk Buffett’s ridiculous tax delusions. Get more information on the facts Stu lays out here.

The GOP is making a concerted effort to pressure billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett to release his tax returns to the public. Republicans say Buffett — the public face of Obama’s proposed “Buffett rule” to increase taxes on the wealthy — needs to reveal his finances if his views on tax rates are going to serve as the basis for Obama administration policy. “Will Warren Buffett release his tax returns so we can see why he should be the standard for tax policy?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) questioned in a tweet Thursday. “If he’s going to be the gold standard,...

Buffett to headline blockbuster Obama Chicago fundraiser By: Steven R. Strahler September 21, 2011 (Crain's) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is coming to Chicago to help raise money for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign at a $35,800-per-ticket fundraiser next month at the North Shore home of investment banker Byron Trott, according to a draft invitation. The Oct. 27 event will be co-hosted by James Crown, Penny Pritzker, John Rogers Jr. and other major local donors who fueled Mr. Obama's first presidential campaign and are lining up to back him again. Mr. Obama is not expected to attend, according to Mr....

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will help raise money for President Barack Obama's re-election effort at a $35,800-a-ticket fundraiser next month in Chicago, an Obama campaign official said on Wednesday. Buffett will attend the October 27 event at a private home on Chicago's North Shore that is expected to include major donors to Obama's 2008 presidential run. The Democratic president, who is not expected to attend, is running for re-election in 2012. Buffett, the legendary chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has landed in the center of a growing political battle over Obama's proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy by inspiring...

A Recap Of the CRP Platform Committee Activity At the Convention There is much to be said about the California Republican Party’s Fall Convention held in downtown Los Angeles last weekend. Presidential candidates and a straw poll, great workshops and townhalls, tributes, speeches and more. The better part of a thousand GOP activists, donors and leaders descended on the L.A. Live! Marriott-Ritz hotel, across from the Staples Center (we were the pre-show for the Emmy Awards, I guess). This column, however, is devoted to only one aspect of the convention – the ongoing process of the quadrennial adoption of the...

In recent days, the Buffett name has become synonymous with support for higher taxes, but a long time ago, it was associated with fierce opposition to federal taxation and big government. Warren Buffett may be a committed liberal Democrat, but his father, Howard Buffett, was a four-term Republican member of Congress (1943-49 and 51-53), a John Bircher who fought FDR and warned that the expansion of government was eroding individual liberty.

President Obama today endorsed a “Buffett Rule” for tax policy: “Any reform should follow another simple principle: Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that. Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it.” Obama is arguing for another “alternative minimum tax (AMT).” In this case, the “Buffett Rule” seems to imply that high income households should pay taxes (even on capital gains) at about a 25 percent rate, no matter what. That is the marginal tax rate for most...

Carrie Kizer is not amused. An executive assistant for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett in Omaha, Neb., she has been fielding media requests for two days from reporters looking to talk to Warren Buffett's secretary. The calls have been coming ever since the president in announcing a plan to raise taxes on investment income said Monday morning, "Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett."

WASHINGTON -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett isn’t as undertaxed as he and President Obama seem to think. *** Buffett actually was taxed twice on his investment income. First, Buffett had to make the money he invested. Those earnings were taxed as corporate income, at about a 35-percent rate. Then, Uncle Sam took another cut when Buffett invested the money and earned a profit. That’s when Buffett paid the 15 percent capital-gains tax rate. All told, after combining corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, Buffett forked over about 45 percent of his earnings.

Let's hope that Warren Buffet is better at managing funds than he is at tax policy. After Buffett complained that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does, Barack Obama decided to call his new class-warfare taxes “the Buffett Rule” and emphasize that he wants to make taxes more “fair.” But was Buffett right? According to an AP fact check — and just about every ounce of common sense that exists outside of the class-warfare fever swamps of the White House these days — not at all: “Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama...

Washington has repeated nearly every economic policy mistake of the 1930s in recent years, so why not repeat one of the bigger blunders of the 1960s too? We refer to President Obama's proposal yesterday for a new "Buffett Rule" to raise taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million a year. This may sound familiar to readers of a certain age, because it is how the current, and much-hated, Alternative Minimum Tax was born. Mr. Obama, meet Joe Barr. As LBJ's last Treasury Secretary—he served only 30 days—Barr became famous for his January 1969 testimony before Congress that 21 millionaires...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama makes it sound like there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries. "Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

Today the president will unveil a multi-trillion-dollar deficit reduction package, which reportedly includes hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases.  These tax hikes could top $1.2 Trillion -- a figure that includes the $800 Billion in tax increases the president's plan will propose, plus the price tag for his unpaid-for $450 Billion "jobs plan."  Careful -- these numbers should not be confused with the additional record-shattering $800 Billion across-the-board tax increases scheduled to take effect in 2013, when the current Bush rates expire.  Two daunting tax cliffs; so little time.  For a solid overview of why the president's deficit...

The justification for President Obama's new proposed tax on the wealthy is wrong on the numbers. Despite the president's claims, millionaires don't pay lower tax rates than middle class workers. His proposed surcharge on capital gains and dividend taxes will raise already high tax rates on high income individuals and force even more investment outside the United States. The so-called "Buffett rule" is based on Warren Buffett's claim: "The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per...

How can Warren Buffett, one the greatest investors of our time, support higher taxes. On the surface this doesn't make sense. Buffet is a rich guy- right? If he supports higher taxes it must mean either he's cares about poor folks or has a secret recipe to save America? Anyway that you look at it Buffett championing higher taxes and being quoted by Obama is a remarkable developement. Yet there are some good reasons why Buffett is taking this position. The reason Buffet likes more taxes is that he is a billionaire. Does Buffet make income off his investments; sure...

I am listening to Obama complain that Warren's Secretary pays a higher rate than he does.My friends, I think he stepped in a meadow muffin here.Let's say she is a highly compensated Secretary, she is probably in a 28% income tax rate if not higher, while Warren's income from Dividends and Capital Gains is 15%.So rather than raise Warren's rates, why not lower hers to 15%? While your at it, make everyone's Income Tax rate 15% so we all can understand it, no deductions works for me as well. Heck while we at it, lower Corporate tax rates to 15%...

So this is what it’s come to in America. Earwitness News reports that our Taxer-in-Chief is going to try again to tax the rich. As part of his deficit reduction plan,” reports the LA Times, “Obama on Monday will propose a new minimum tax rate for millionaires to ensure they pay an effective federal tax rate at least as high as that paid by middle-class earners, administration officials said.” "The president will call the new tax the ‘Buffett rule’ after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, an Obama supporter who has publicly complained that tax breaks allow him to pay a lower...