SALON

Wednesday, Jan 11, 2012 11:27 PM UTC

Buffett Offers To Match GOP Debt-reducing Gifts

By

Topics: From the Wires,

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett said Wednesday he’s willing to match any contributions that Republican members of Congress make to help reduce the national debt.

Buffett told Time magazine about his offer in a conversation about why he’s optimistic about the nation’s future.

Buffett, who is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, was criticized by Republicans last year for his suggestion that Congress increase taxes on the “mega-rich” like himself.

Several Republicans, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, suggested Buffett just donate money to help the nation balance its books instead of asking to pay higher taxes.

“It restores my faith in human nature to think that there are people who have been around Washington all this time and are not yet so cynical as to think that (the deficit) can’t be solved by voluntary contributions,” Buffett said to the magazine.

Buffett did not immediately respond Wednesday afternoon to a message from The Associated Press.

Buffett tells Time that he doesn’t think many Republicans will be willing to take him up on his offer to match their contributions. The longtime Democrat said he’d even triple anything McConnell gives.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said Congress made it possible for people like Buffett, who argue for higher taxes, to check a box on their tax form and send in a check, but McConnell’s not likely to contribute.

“Sen. McConnell says that Washington should be smaller, rather than taxes getting bigger,” Stewart said.

Buffett has said he believes his tax rate is too low compared with what middle-income wage earners pay, especially as President Barack Obama and Congress struggle to rein in the growing federal debt. He said in a New York Times opinion piece that he paid $6,938,744 in federal taxes in 2010, or about 17.4 percent of his taxable income.

For years Buffett has said he doesn’t believe it is right that he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. And he says most of the mega-rich people he knows wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes.

“We need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren’t as well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society,” Buffett said.

More Josh Funk.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations