[vetiver]

"the average american is worse at managing his money than even the us government, so THEIR money is actually best off in the govt's hands."

What are you talking about? The gov't allocates money in the least productive means possible. It spends at an unprecedented deficit, transferring as much imaginary treasury money as it can get its hands on to special interests -- namely, defense contractors that subcontract jobs in the Middle East and take a nice profit off the top for doing no work.

At least your average, "fickle" Joe can spend his own money on something he derives utility from: a home, car or dinner. Also, I think people would be prone to invest more if they had more idle money... something that would be achieved by cutting taxes.

---

I don't understand Buffett's complaint. He understands the importance of minimal taxation on capital gains, evidenced by his proposal of unlimited IRAs.

The only other issue is the 95k cap on SS, but that's an illegitimate tax to begin with. People are perfectly capable of saving that 6% themselves and probably have a higher return. If they don't save it but buy things instead, they can liquidate that stuff when/if the time comes they run out of money. In any case, it's not governments' job to make sure our nest egg is there for us at x years. It's also not their job to make sure my bed is made and tuck me in at night. I especially shouldn't be paying SS when I'm not going to be receiving any of it.

So unless I'm missing something, the marginal tax rate is slightly higher (due to progressive income tax levels) for richies than poor folk if you subtract SS and capital gains. Richies are rich so they can afford it, poor folk are poor but they can reap the benefit of 1% richies paying for like half of the army's new destructive toys.