If there's anything government can do well, it's the ability to tax creatively. A simple solution (and I'm not saying it's the best solution) would be to expand the income tax to cover all forms of income (lowering it in the process) and eliminate the capital gains tax.
But I did want to point out that the purpose of my article was to demonstrate my confusion and ask you guys for help, not necessarily to state that policy would hurt more than the mega rich. I understand the reasons pro and con for tax reform -- it's a great topic. What I didn't understand is what the hell Buffett was trying to argue: fairness, social efficiency, marxist philosophy, what?
As part of that, I felt that I had to come clean and show my position -- I think the entire debate is phony and just a way to control the masses. But I really, really didn't want to get into the politics. My interest as a writer and outhouse philosopher was the clarity of his piece, not the validity of the argument. (Commenter Ron came by the blog and made a great defense of Buffett's position. You should read it if you're interested.) Once we state our case clearly, then productive discussion has a chance to begin.
And it beats the living shit out of me how asking questions can somehow be taken as challenging Buffett or talking outside my expertise. The whole idea of asking questions is to demonstrate you don't have knowledge and to ask for help. People act as if I somehow called Buffett out. Geesh.
You also said "His real argument is probably too snooty of an argument to make in print, but something tells me that's what he's really getting at. I wished he'd have just come out with it, though. It would have been a lot more honest."
This strongly implies that the author (Buffett) is dishonest in his arguments. I'd say that's calling him out.
The first part was simply an expression of my bias. I owed that to the reader.
Good grief.
Much more interesting to discuss that than how clear Buffett's argument is. (Which is quite clear, in my opinion.)
I originally wrote "intellectually dishonest" mostly out of habit. It's a phrase I like. But then I looked at it and realized that was way too harsh of a statement. Buffett is not lying here. He's just a nice old man (probably a little on the cranky side) who wants to play at politics a bit.
I don't think there was any subterfuge or lying at all going on. What I think is that he could have used a good editor, but probably when you are worth 3 kazillion dollars it's tough to get somebody to take you out to the woodshed and tell you to tighten up your piece, make a thesis, and then support it. I have structural problems with the article, not concerns about the honesty of the author.