Well after a couple of weeks of playing target practice with a ray gun the sore throat they were promising has arrived. Looks like this most expensive of diets has now kicked into it’s starting phase…

Checking the news this morning I see Warren Buffett is living up to the high expectations I have come to place on him. If the world had more like him there is a good chance we could live up to the ideals that once drove our view of this country’s place in the world.

Buffett Slams Tax System Disparities – washingtonpost.com
Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class.

Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.

Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. “I don’t have a tax shelter,” he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who “clean our offices” are taxed, to loud applause.

It reminds me of the disparities in property tax rates around the country. States that don’t tax income have to tax something, and those with low income taxes tax property to make up the difference. The simple fact is public services have to be paid for. Schools, roads, libraries, parks, police, armies it all has a price and it all has to be paid for. At least some of those at the top of the monetary pile understand that…