Warren Buffett recently concluded off-ed piece in the New York Times by saying, "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."
In the article he reflected on his years an investment advisor going back to 1950 That is just five or so years after Henry Hazlett popularized the idea that taxing the wealthy would hurt job creation. In that same article he took on this theory and pointed to the fact that in his 60 years of working with investors it was when the wealthiest among us were taxed at the highest rates (39.9%) that jobs were created and when they we taxed at the lowest rate (21.5%) jobs were lost and he has the data to back it up. This by itself should tell us something
However, I want to focus on his notion of "shared sacrifice." That got me to thinking about my own life experience. Now I am not by any stretch of the imagination or even in my wildest dreams in the same income bracket as Warren Buffett and his friends . . . not even close. But this idea of "shared sacrifice" resonated with me
During my active ministry all but one of the churches where I served as senior pastor engaged in some sort of building program. In each and every one of those congregations that entered into these campus expansions there was a dual commitment. First, we wanted everyone, no mater what their financial ability, to participate financially in the project. Simply stated we want everyone to be invested in the new facilities. Second, we insisted that financial burden would be shared by everyone equally.
You see, I believed that everyone who would use the facility or his children and grandchildren would use the facility should have a financial investment in bringing those building projects to completion. It is only right that it you are to use it you should help pay for it. Did we succeed? Not completely. You always have people who want to ride on someone else's nickle. Not everyone who was a member of those churches choose to participate but most did.
We also believed that the burden of providing those facilities should be equally shared. Did we succeed it this? I think largely so! Now this did not mean that each member or family would give an equal amount to the project. What it meant was to equally sharing the burden. We recognized the biblical principle of, "to whom much is given much shall be required."
Equal giving in terms of amount would not be fair and it would make it impossible for some to participate. We did not even set a percentage of income that would be the same for everyone because that too would be unfair to those at the lowest levels of the income spectrum and force some not to participate.
That's why Warren Buffett's "shared sacrifice" resonates with me. What we asked the poorest and the wealthiest among us to do was to sit down as a family, examine their personal financial circumstance and arrive at an amount and method of giving level that would create a level of financial pain. Essentially we asked them to give until it actually cost them something to give the amount. And that is exactly what they did. From the widow living on Social Security and in HUD housing to the wealthiest among us living in their large opulent homes these commitments were made. In every case the end result was success.
I don't know what kind of tax code we need in terms of form. I do know what we need in terms of fair. It is fair, only when the burden in shared as evenly as is humanly possible. Rich man, poor man, beggar man are Americans all and to a person would just as soon not pay any taxes and some on both ends of the spectrum don't and that's not right. (BTW - I suspect that the combined incomes of all the people on the low end of the income spectrum that pay no taxes don't equal the income as one of the families on the top end of the spectrum who pay no taxes
But I digress and must come to the conclusion of this matter. Recognizing that they are necessary I contend that they should also be fair. I want to know that we are in this together and that we share the tax burden fairly. I don't even suggest that the tax burden hurt equally. Rather than having equal tax pain I would prefer it to be equally painless to the low income family as it is to the upper income family. I don't want my perot boat to sink while the fellow living on Easy Street sails away on his mega-yacht
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