First, this is totally besides the point. We're not talking about what the working poor or the retired pay anyways. I hate to follow your misleading tangen/dodge other than to say it's misleading because the bottom 50% still pay payroll taxes which are significant for them. There's also various state taxes they pay. The mega-rich that would be affected by the Buffett proposal don't hardly pay payroll taxes at all as it gets capped at a certain max which is a rounding error for them.
I'm not talking about the $11,600 standard deduction or exemptions of of $3,700 per person. Or of not taxing SS money. Personally, I'm fine with those, but it's a different topic.
Buffett's proposal is useful for comparing income taxes of the middle class with the taxes mega-wealthy. It's for comparing people who do pay income taxes with people who do pay income taxes.
I don't even know what to say without looking like a complete "look at me" dooshbag. I've been a 1%er for the past 4 years. I've had enough money to go on any lavish vacation I've wanted to. I've eaten at the best restaurants in the country/world. I make it a habit to purchase Christian Louboutin shoes. I rent a beach house every summer in the most affluent shore town in NJ. If I wanted to buy a really nice house I could do so with cash right now without ever having to pay a mortgage. I have $180K in checks from last summer that I haven't even cashed yet because there was a mess up and the company I was working for in Manhattan had the wrong address.
And if the government wants to raise my taxes because we are in a time of crisis, it will not affect my life in the teensiest tiniest little bit. Because I have more money than I could possibly ever spend and I live a very luxurious lifestyle.
I tried to say this in a way that wasn't bragging about myself about 6 months ago, but it didn't work out too well because I got in a fight with Strike and it ended up with him wanting to see my tax returns. But I was basically agreeing with a guy that had been interviewed on Wall Street about how he wouldn't really give a shiit if his taxes went up.
The whole thing that is focked up with the low tax rate on capital gains.... is that the extremely wealthy investment banker types' entire salary is capital gains. So they could be making millions of dollars a year on capital gains and they have zero salary. I think this is where Warren Buffett is going with this. It is focked up that someone making that much money pays less percent in taxes than an average middle class person does. The system is broken.
And for some reason a whole bunch of people that don't have a lot of money (or ironically are unemployed and living off of the government) want to try to defend the wealthy people as if the wealthy are going to somehow make their lives better. You wanna know what? We are just going to keep on keeping on with our European vacations and custom made European clothing products because they are about the only thing not made in China right now and pieces of shiit. HTH!