Monday, August 22, 2011

Republican Corporate Chairman On Whether Tax Cuts For The Rich Create Jobs: ‘That’s So Baloney’

Earlier this month, billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote in a New York Times op-ed that Congress has been “coddling the super-rich,” and called for higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires. “While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” he wrote. “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.”

Several Republicans have scoffed at Buffet’s proposal, including the multimillionaire Mitt Romney. However, in an interview with Fox 4 News, multimillionaire Henry Bloch — co-founder and chairman emeritus of the tax preparation company H&R Block and a registered Republican — said that “the wealthy have a debt to this country. They can afford to pay it and they should.” He added that the Republican push to protect tax breaks for millionaires in order to promote job creation is “baloney“:
“That’s so baloney,” Bloch said. “Rich people don’t create jobs. Companies create jobs.”…”You probably pay a higher rate than I do… and yet my income is probably many times what yours is,” Bloch said to FOX 4 Reporter Rob Low.
Watch it:
 
Bloch is not alone in the GOP in agreeing with Buffett’s op-ed. Last week, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) said Buffett is right that loopholes in the tax code “skew in favor of the ultra-wealthy, ultra-wealthy corporations, and the overseas aristocracy.” (HT: former ThinkProgress intern Paul Breer)

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