I don’t know if you heard this, but the Senate voted down the Buffet Rule this week and I am very relieved. It’s just another attack on our freedoms. When will the gov’ment overreach end? What does the Senate, or the Feds, have to do with the “All U Can Eat” Buffet? It’s one of America’s greatest liberties.
Sunday after Sunday, Americans from all walks of life — some who have worshipped in our houses of faith and others who have simply gotten up hungry — they all flock to our restaurants and line up, like dutiful sheep, just so they can go through the “All U Can Eat” $11.95 buffet.
Why, it’s a part of the competitive nature of denominational Christianity. Which church is going to end the service first and, therefore confer upon its congregants the advantage of getting ahead of the others? Right now, it seems to be the Methodists by a nose!
Speaking of noses, why is the Federal Government sticking its Jimmy Durante “Schnozzola” into our buffet business? It must need more money for the next GSA convention in Las Vegas. Or perhaps the Secret Service could use a little more per diem so that they might hire a few more escorts.
The President says it’s a matter of everyone’s patriotic duty to pay fairly their share. Mr. Obama does not want to wade into the stream of people getting a “fair share” at the Sunday buffet. From some of the plates that I have seen, most people are getting not only their fair share, but two or three other people’s shares, too!
All of this Buffet Rule talk started when a man named Warren acknowledged that his secretary paid a larger share of her wages than he did. First of all, this man named Warren doesn’t even know how to spell his last name. He has added an extra “t” and it makes me wonder how anyone who cannot even spell his last name could make so much money.
Warren Buffett is a gazillionaire who manages a company named Berkshire Hathaway. I don’t know where the Berkshire part of the name comes from, but I think the Hathaway part is from the Beverly Hillbillies secretary, Jane Hathaway. She finally figured out that Jethro was never going to marry her, so she left Mr. Drysdale and the bank and moved to Omaha. At least that is what my anonymous source told me.
Berkshire Hathaway is a company that knows how to make money. They may net earnings as much as $10 billion dollars a year. Buffett, however, does not make that much; he pays himself a paltry salary of $100,000. He pays his secretary, poor girl, at least twice that much. Therefore, she pays more taxes and at a higher rate. He’s playing a game with the IRS.
Buffett earns another $60 million per year through what is known as capital gains. Those are monies made through the Berkshire Hathaway investment portfolio and are taxed at approximately one-half the rate as his or his secretary’s salary. Buffett is no dummy when it comes to making money. Plus, he’s no dummy when it comes to paying taxes.
The President proposed the Buffett tax, many say, to help him with his re-election bid and he may be right. Polls show that the majority of Americans want rich folks, like Warren Buffett, to pay a larger share of the country’s needed revenue. Support for the rule may be as high as 70 percent.
I don’t think I go along with Mr. Obama and his “fair share” proposal. I offer two reasons.
First, It is not that I think that everyone who has gotten rich in America has paid their fair share. I am certain, without a doubt, that there are plenty of rich folks who go all around their elbow to get to their nose to keep from paying taxes. That’s an old, Southern phrase that means doing all sorts of superfluous things just to keep from doing what is easily or rightly done.
In other words, it would not surprise me one iota to find rich folks who make plenty of money and don’t pay as much federal tax as Joe the Plumber or Nancy the Nurse. That’s not right and I would like for them to “Stop It!” and pay what they should.
But 14 Buffett Rules will not change the fact that where there is a will, there is a way. And people who want to skirt their patriotic duty and pay what they legitimately owe will always find a dodge somewhere. It’s not right, but it is a fact.
Then there is this “fair share” thing. I’ve heard “fair share” so much that I am about to turn blue in the face. The talk is about getting more and more out of the rich when they already pay a whole lot. I know this is hard to accept, but the top 10 percent of earners in America pay 70 percent of the federal income tax. The bottom 50 percent of earners in America pay 3 percent. What’s so fair about that?
The reason some are clamoring for the rich to pay more is that, for their plans, we need more. When we do better with what we have, then, and only then, would I ask anyone to pay more. Meanwhile don’t be messing around with my buffet line!