Billionaires Buffett and Gates: Tax Us More!
Exclusive: Amanpour Interviews with Two of World's Richest Men
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28, 2010— -- As the debate over the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts heats up in Washington, some of the world's richest men weighed in on the debate over taxes in exclusive interviews on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said that the rich should be paying more taxes and that the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy should be left to expire at the end of December.
"If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further," Buffett said. "But I think that people at the high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it."
The billionaire brushed aside Republican arguments that letting tax cuts expire for the wealthy would hurt economic growth.
"They say you have to keep those tax cuts, even on the very wealthy, because that is what energizes business and capitalism," anchor Amanpour said.
"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on," Buffett explained.
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO also insisted that the wealthy didn't sacrifice.
"There's no sacrifice among the rich," Buffett said. "There's plenty of sacrifice going on now. I mean, if you look at Iraq and now Afghanistan, there's been sacrifice. But I would doubt if you take the people on the Forbes 400 list -- whether many of them have a child or a grandchild that served in Iraq or Afghanistan -- they come home in body bags to Nebraska, but they don't have to call up anybody up at the country club to notify them," he said.
Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, weighed in on a failed ballot initiative spearheaded by his father, Bill Gates Sr., and others to raise taxes on the wealthiest residents of Washington State. Initiative1098, as the measure was known, was voted down on November 2.
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