At Last, A Solution: Fewer Millionaires

Millionaire

Whoa, something must have happened while we were on a small island and missed the paper. All of a sudden we're at war again...against those heinous foes...Millionaires!

The President, in particular, is out to get Millionaires. We can tell, because he calls them "people" and not "folks." Folks are "ordinary Americans," who are a lot of things (overweight, poor students, credit-liars, tax-evaders), but they are simple folks, who are constantly screwed by the kind of people we call...people. Especially Millionaires.

Around election time, which begins the day after any election, there are suddenly a lot more folks than people out there in election land for Democrats to praise. Republicans can't seem to find anyone to praise, who isn't currently living in some asylum or will soon be in one.

Golly, maybe some of the Millionaire parents in O's daughters' exclusive private school did something particularly bad, like make gauche donations to the scholarship fund?

The real answer seems to lie with Warren Buffet, who is not even a Millionaire; he is a Billionaire and, apparently, that is an okay thing to be, particularly if you happen to be a Democratic Billionaire. Why, everyone knows that Uncle Warren is "just folks." He is beloved because he found a way to make money blackmailing banks like Goldman Sachs and Salomon Bros. Who wouldn't love that? We even love that little gecko, who works for Geico, one of Warren's many companies.

A few weeks ago, after Buffet got finished blackmailing Bank of America into giving him a sweetheart deal, he must have felt remorse. He woke one day complaining how absurd it was that he was paying an effective tax rate that was lower than the one most of his employees pay. Rather than give them all a whopping raise, he proposed ways to make him pay higher than 17%.

Could it be that Warren Buffet, The Sage Of Omaha, does not know that he could pick up the phone on his NetJets' jet (he owns this company which allows Millionaires who can't afford their own jet to share, plus he is cheap as all get out) and call his lawyer and accountant and simply instruct them to not take certain deductions, so that he could pay higher taxes? One would think that most folks know this can be done.

Apparently he doesn't know this. The President does not seem prepared to tell him this. The Times and MSNBC, desperate to prop up President O and always eager to annihilate unsuspecting Millionaires, who do not live in Tribeca,  have jumped on this band wagon. Is it too early or too outrageous to think that we might soon be erecting Millionaire Internment Camps as the best solution to the nation's many problems?

Camp Millionaire, Nebraska

This must be very confusing to recent immigrants to this country from China, Mexico, Hungary, Bulgaria, or Ecuador. These folks have a dream of becoming Millionaires, and this dream is partially what drives them to come here, work two jobs, educate their children, eventually become citizens and, yes, even pay some taxes.

What Mr. Buffet and the President and their cohorts seem to be missing is that what they have to say about Millionaires paying more taxes and the way they say it, is a very, very good argument for something they consider to be abhorrent...a flat tax of...17%*.

You see, Uncle Warren, that if you paid a flat 17% income/capital gains tax on everything you made,  with only one deduction of $8-10,000 per dependent, you would effectively pay a whole lot more money in taxes, as would every despicable Millionaire in the country. Plus, your company, Berkshire Hathaway, would also pay a flat 17% on earnings.

You see, Uncle Warren, unlike your friends in Washington, real people pay their bills with money, not ideas.

They like the possibility of doing their taxes on a postal card and knowing that Millionaires and Billionaires are paying a lot more money, even though they are paying the same rate. Real people like simple, practical things like EZ Pass, itunes, etc.

Is that too hard for some folks to understand? Yes, because they are caught up in their feelings, rather than in finding a rational solution to our problems.

Grow up.

* Here is a list of grown up countries, run by adults, with adult electorates, who use a simple flat tax:
http://flattaxes.blogspot.com/2010/09/flat-tax-countries-and-jurisdictions.html