From AFP:
With the US Congress hurtling toward a deadline on expiring tax cuts, a growing number of wealthy people are calling for higher taxes on the rich to help restore America’s fiscal health.
One effort gathered over 45 millionaires who signed an open petition calling for the end of the tax cuts adopted since 2001 on those with annual incomes exceeding one million dollars.
Tax breaks for the wealthy should expire “for the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens,” the letter said. It was signed by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream founder Ben Cohen, hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt and others.
Guy Saperstein, a retired California trial lawyer who organized the effort, said he was “frustrated” that President Barack Obama appeared to be wavering on his pledge to end tax cuts for the wealthy.
“I think the country’s in trouble,” Saperstein told AFP. “In hard times, the top strata who have done fabulously well need to sacrifice a bit, and it’s not much of a sacrifice… We have among the lowest tax rates of any industrialized democracy.”
Saperstein said an estimated 1,500 people have signed the letter although some of them did not want to be publicly identified on the group’s website.
Philippe Villers, a French-born US businessman who founded Computervision in the 1960s and now heads Grain Pro, says he signed the letter even though it would mean higher taxes for himself.
“I don’t think (extending the tax cuts for the wealthy) are fair or in the interest of building a strong economy,” he said.
Villers argued that tax cuts enacted under former president George W. Bush gave a “disproportionate benefit to people with means” and contributed to the current economic woes.
Another 410 high-income Americans have signed a similar petition by Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business and civic leaders, calling for tax cuts to expire for families with incomes above 250,000 dollars.
“I’ve had a good run over the last few years. There’s no question that others now deserve to share in that prosperity,” said one of the signatories, Jeffrey Hayes, president of Stratalys Research & Consulting.
Similar comments have come from Warren Buffett, the investment guru who ranks among the world’s richest individuals.
“I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it,” Buffett said in an ABC News interview.
Read the whole thing here. Just goes to prove, just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you know anything about economics or fiscal policy. Federal revenues have been fairly stable for the past couple decades…its the spending that’s skyrocketed. Also, keep in mind, there is actually nothing preventing these folks from writing a big check to the Treasury, if they think they are undertaxed. Do as you say.
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