I think that something is fundamentally wrong if a person of his great wealth is only paying 13.9 percent effective tax rate and most of Americans are paying 28, 30 percent and they make far less.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's morally wrong, and economically self-defeating, that so much wealth flows upwards towards the richest of Americans, while millions work full time but still can't provide for their families.
I think the rich should pay more in taxes - I agree with that 100 percent - but everybody should feel the pain a little bit.
It's really a question of fairness and what kind of country we're going to live in. There are 22,000 people making over $1 million. They're paying an effective tax rate in the teens. As Warren Buffett said, he pays less in taxes effectively than his secretary does. That's not right.
A huge segment of the country has always felt overtaxed. In 1938, when taxes were roughly 17% of income, a 'Fortune' survey found that nearly half of all Americans thought they paid too much relative to what they got in return.
You've got the top 400 Americans owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Most folks do not think that is right.
According to the IRS, the wealthiest 400 Americans, who earned an average of roughly $270 million in 2008, paid an average tax rate of just 18.2 percent that year. That's about the same rate paid by a single truck driver in Rhode Island. It's not right, and we need to restore fairness to our tax code.
The problem with the economy isn't that people aren't paying their fair share of taxes.
Rich people don't pay taxes? Of course they pay taxes - they pay tons in taxes. They pay for everyone else who doesn't pay taxes.
The rich aren't like us, they pay less taxes.
Cutting taxes for very high income people an average of more than $100,000 a year for people that make more than a million dollars a year is not an effective way to get the economy going.
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