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Berkshire
Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett attends a
news conference after the opening ceremony of Tungaloy Corp's new plant in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture November 21, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon) |
(Reuters) -
Warren Buffett is willing to put his money where his mouth is, if only
congressional Republicans would join him.
The
billionaire investor, in the new issue of Time magazine, says he will donate $1
to paying down the national debt for every dollar donated by a Republican in
Congress. The only exception is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell - for
whom Buffett said he would go $3-to-$1.
The idea
stems from a New York Times opinion piece Buffett wrote last August in which he
said the rich ought to pay more taxes. It sparked an instant controversy, with
some Washington conservatives calling on the 81-year-old "Oracle of
Omaha" to voluntarily pay extra.
"It
restores my faith in human nature to think that there are people who have been
around Washington all this time and are not yet so cynical as to think that
can't be solved by voluntary contributions," the Berkshire Hathaway CEO
told Time for an article hitting newsstands on Friday.
He went on
to tell the magazine that what the country needed was a system that favored
people who were not born investors.
"We
need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren't as
well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just
as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society," he
said.
Buffett,
who has raised money for President Barack Obama recently, takes swings at
Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the Time
interview as well, criticizing Gingrich's track record and Romney's ties to the
private equity business.
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