My favorite is that a "reckoning" sounds super dramatic...but the "reckoning" is just "having to pay a realistic amount of taxes."  Oh no, run for the hills!

Wouldn't the Buffet rule be that everyone pays the SAME percent of income tax???  That's the most just method of taxation.

No it's not. flat tax rates are regressive and unfair to lower income taxpayers. 20% taxation of, say, $30,000 leaves you with a lot less to live on than 20% of $3,000,000. Rich people benefit just as much, if not more, from the government, and so should pay a larger proportional share in it.

In reality the entire tax code should be scrapped and a new one simplified. Tax brackets redone, cap gains taxes increased, loopholes that allow corporations and the ultra-rich to get away without paying eliminated. Because here's the thing: right now, someone who earns a high salary and actually works for it, like say, a doctor, actually pays quite a bit in taxes. Whereas some silver-spoon douchebag who was born rich barely pays any taxes at all, because all his income is from investments. That's what's fucked up. People act like just raising the tax rate on people with high salaries is going to fix the problem, but it's not. The super-rich will just find yet more loopholes, if they're even affected at all.

This one of those issues where people take a sledgehammer when they need a scalpel. I agree - people who can live off of capital gains completely and only get taxed at a maximum rate of 15% on those gains is bullshit. At the same time, I don't think you want to de-incentivize people from investing, or buying real estate (property taxes and mortgage interest being huge deductions that lower someone's effective tax rate), etc. The only deduction they try to protect in this proposal is charitable contributions, but there are plenty of other constructive ones. The 30% rate is a good idea - but make it a means test -- if you have more than $200,000 per year -- or whatever level --  in cap gains (which would snag all of your Romneys and Buffetts, and probably exclude your "new money, just made it big" folks), you get kicked in the minimum 30% bracket.

The whole de-incentivize thing is a bullshit argument.

Baseline scenario: $100,000 in taxable income, taxed at 15%. Net: $85,000.

Increased rate: $100,000 in taxable income, taxed at 30%. Net: $70,000

Alternative scenario: No taxable income because of "de-incentivization". Net: $0.

Real estate is a red herring and has nothing to do with this. You're exempt from taxes on up to $2 million of your personal home. Most people under $200,000 (or whatever level) are not going to have much cap gains anyway, so putting the means test in there just allows someone to cry 'class warfare!!1'.

IMO the real solution is to treat all income equally and apply a progressive bracket. Remove charitable and interest deductions (which would allow lower rates). Only real exemption would be cap gains on your personal home.

Or like, you know, Caroline Kennedy

So how many Buffet Rule waivers will the Obama administration allow?  All of Obama's cronies are getting Obamacare waivers.  It's going to happen with Buffet Rule as well and then we'll be right back where we are today.

You do realize that waivers aren't something that are just invented by the President, right? They're a mechanism written into the underlying legislation.

They can either do this. Or prove that they created 800,000 jobs that year with the money.

I cant believe people try to argue against this.  Just make it fucking fair already.  What is the debate about.  Making 100k rich people 15% richer?  If we wanted to cut services to 100k people, there would be no fucking debate, it would just happen.

Warren Buffet is like the anti-Trump. My parents used to live near him in Omaha - he lives in a little stucco bungalow in Dundee, had a modest car, and gives genuine humble advice. Eats at the same local steakhouse every weekend. 

If you ask me, his lifestyle is way classier than any of the Donald's solid gold toilets, model wives, gaudy mirrored penthouses, and tacky nightclubs. 

Yes and when he feels like cutting loose he goes to his oceanfront mansion in Malibu.

What's the point of this comment, exactly?  To prove that Buffet is a rich asshole like the rest of 'em?

I'm on board with the rich paying their fair share (looking at you romney), but the "f the rich" attitude goes a little far.

Aw, how sweet. When is the old fool going to pay his back taxes, all the way back to 2002? Who cares, he's humble.

how about reducing taxes for EVERYBODY.

The government has way too much money that they piss away. The less money they have to play with, the less mischief and corruption they can engage in.

SOS we've been hearing for the last 30 years, Roger. Coincidently (?) the same time frame during which the rich in America got a lot richer, while average Americans have seen their household incomes stagnate or even decline.

And yet here we are with obama in office 3 years with trillions in debt, record unemployment, foreclosures, America downgraded for the first time in history.

Per BLS data, record unemployment occurred in 1983.

Huh, how about that.

So you agree that Obama has been too conservative in his fiscal policies?  Huh!  I didn't expect you to be such a flaming progressive, but you know, I agree with you!  Obama is all but a Republican!  Nixon was a better liberal than him.