Could he PLEASE just admit it’s wealth redistribution?

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.”There wasn’t anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don’t have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do,” he said.

If he really wanted to ‘pay his fair share’ he could not only voluntarily give the government more but he could give gifts to those he felt were paying too much. Perhaps he would like the 70%+ top tax bracket back from WWII? Does he ignore the fact he’s paying taxes on capital gains and dividends vs. the receptionist’s wages? It’s taxed before he gets it at 35%. Then he pays 15% on that. It just floors me… he wants the government to force him to pay more taxes when he can freely give them more and ask others to do the same. It’s like when Bill Maher complained to Bill O’Reilly about the Bush tax cuts. He said effectively the same thing as Buffett is. “The rich aren’t paying their share… I’d gladly pay more.” When O’Reilly showed him the form where you can give more than required Maher just stopped dead in his tracks, looking like a deer in headlights. They aren’t dumb guys and I doubt they are ignorant to the fact they can pay more… so what is it?  What’s their justification for wanting the threat of force to be used to take (more of) the property of their fellow citizens? They have the means and connections to supply many of the services the government does… why don’t they? Why can’t Michael Moore setup his own insurance company if the thinks they are so horrible? Why must all these plans of their be implemented by a proxy at the barrel of a gun?

From CNN.com:

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

What the hell were they thinking? They’re 6th graders… not that it matters how old they are. I can only hope that those who came up with this idea were stoned, drunk or otherwise altered.

This isn’t as bad as that high school which a few months few years back was raided by local police, guns drawn, searching for drugs. At the moment I’m not able to find any article about it but it was captured on the school’s cameras and was simply outrageous. Bill O’Reilly had a decent piece on it but I’m not finding anything about it on his site.

UPDATE:

xyz found what I was looking for at CNN.com. It happened in November 2003. I’m not sure why I only heard about it a few months ago. Seems unlikely that The O’Reilly Factor episode I saw was a rerun from back then…

UPDATE 2:

The case was settled in  July, 06… seems I was off by a few months :-/