Matching Donation

His response is irrelevant to what Mitch McConnel and others were criticizing him about.

It basically went like this:

Buffet: The rich should pay higher taxes

Mitch McConnel: If you want to pay higher taxes go ahead, but don't lump the rest of the upper class into it.

Buffet: Ok! I'll match whatever you donate.

Does Buffet know whats going on?

Fact: 300k =/= 50M

Look, good for them. I am happy that they are paying down my share of the debt.

I am willing to pay higher taxes if it means we don't have to worry about $15 Trillion in debt and the long-term commitments from medicare and social security.

If they really want to pay down the debt perhaps they should use their legislative powers instead of their pocketbooks.

Is that a joke? That many rich politicians couldn't come up with more than a few hundred thousands?

Buffett knows exactly what he's doing. He's ignored McConnell's dismissal and shifted the topic of the conversation. Now it's about Republican congressmen who care about the budget deficit.

Eventually, the question becomes, "Does McConnell hate taxes so much that he's willing to let the US go bankrupt by not raising them?"

The guy plays a mean game of political chess, and the traditional Republican leadership is too myopic to see what's going on.

Exactly. The focus is changing to the Republican reps who are making contributions to lower the deficit and the debt. Instead of the politics of negative resistance, we get the politics of positive planning. We're not talking about Mitch McConnell's comments, now; we're talking about Scott Rigell and having a civil conversation.

I think he would make a great Senate Minority/Majority Leader.

You're just grasping at straws, Ilini. First of all, Buffett's logic is absurd. Second of all, you're operating under the assumption that what Buffett says carries any more weight among the electorate than what Brad Pitt says.

Here is what happened: Buffett made an idiotic comment about taxes (on several occassions), he was told to put up or shut up, and about 2 months later he came up with a response that lacked a punch line. And now you're defending him as a political genius. That's comical.

Hardly, Va Tech. Look at what everyone's talking about. It's not Mitch McConnell's approach "No, you pay taxes." It's Senator Scott Rigell! Even you're talking about this.

This is a win for Republican deficit hawks and a win for folks who like balanced budgets.

I'm not sure how much weight Buffett's comments carry with voters, but they carry something with investors. This just seems like an interesting development. Hopefully more Senators will follow suit.

Did you ever see the "Jerk Store" Seinfeld episode? George Constanza drove to Ohio to hit an old co-worker with a comeback from an insult laid several weeks earlier. Buffett's idiocy was called out months ago. I bet Buffett had strategy meeting with the DNC on how to respond to the GOP calling him out. And they came up with the dumbest response ever--60 days later...

And? Isn't that old news now? I thought we were talking about Sen. Rigell's bold move to take Buffett's match?

I'm not. I couldn't possibly care less, nor does anyone else.

But it's so good that you're responding to this thread and joining us in talking about this new positive development in politics. Even by ignoring it and posting in this thread, you're helping to draw attention to it.

Rigell's decision makes Buffett look good and it makes Rigell looks good. Let's hope more party rank and file follow his lead.

If this development mattered then it would be on Drudge Report or some other big news outlet. The story is on a Fortune blog.

Shrug. It's made waves here, and thanks to your help, might be showing up as a most active discussion here on WSO.

I posted this story earlier this week...