Warren Buffett has a complaint. He pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary, or so he claims, and this is a scandal. One might counter that since he meticulously games his compensation taking only a cool $100k in “income”; and the balance in capital gains he complains against himself. The simplest thing might be to alter his affairs so he draws his lucre in straight salary plus bonuses, eschewing the dance of trust payments and carried interest his genius accountants set up for him long ago but simplicity is not Buffett’s bailiwick. He is more into snapping up distressed businesses that are distressed because of their tax bill; usually the estate tax bill, and flipping them for gorgeous profits. Hmm. Maybe that is simple. No, Buffett, contrary to well-honed opinions, is not the beating heart of capitalism. Rather he has crafted himself a nearly uniquely safe and prosperous niche in the fiscal ecosystem. He is a buzzard. Not only is he a buzzard but he is a lucky, lucky buzzard; luckier or craftier than other would-be buzzards as he has found a lumbering omnivore that stomps its way through field and street twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and every damned day of the year. Buffett is a carrion crow with no need even to lazily glide about sniffing for the waft of rotten flesh. He sits on the shoulder of Leviathan; picking through the crushed bodies in its footsteps, nibbling at the gooey bits in its stool and when not feasting, whispers in its ear; This way. Not that.

His recent pronouncements are best described as a louder bit of whispering. Too bad for this scavenger the fleeing fauna that shrieks and runs from his mount have spotted him and fling rocks at his perch if they can survive to do so. This forces the Buffettbird to be more blatant than he would prefer. His decades of slyly guiding developments in the tax code to benefit his feeding habits have not prepared him for a moveable feast that moves this fast or is itself this hungry. Whether he knows it or not, Buffett also relies on vitality in the economy at large to book his vast increases, but even more he relies on the weakening effect of taxation to make easier and easier prey. To further this function he cries out in jest, “Tax me! Tax me!”

How do we know he is joking? He sure ain’t laughin’! No, but he’s not serious. This we know because even his fine harem of fiscal camouflage artists cannot work miracles forever. Buffett has an outstanding tax bill that has accrued over years to more than a billion dollars. That may not sound like much to a fat-cat like you but for Mr. Buffett it would be a real burden to disgorge. He might have to sell a Faberge egg or two. He is a man of modest means, legally. Like Al Sharpton and his wardrobe, Buffett “owns” almost nothing by the standards of international billionaires. Institutions and (gasp!) endlessly baroque corporate structures do the owning as Sharpton doesn’t own a single suit but borrows his impressive wardrobe from a series of friends that wear his size. Al is simply a mouthy mannequin. Buffett is simply The Boss.

Having made krillions for mom-and-pop investors (as well as many a lazy fund manager) he feels entitled to have his word taken as writ. Today he speaks as one with our President who is the Constitutional brain of Leviathan. In chorus they yell TAX and cut. TAXXXX ‘n cut. TAAHAAAXXXXX!

and cut

You sigh in relief, at least it’s no longer tax and spend! But the spending is silent, like the G in champagne. Okay, it’s not silent but it is relatively hard to hear as they never say Spending anymore since the Truman Administration. Nor Stimulus, which is another name for it. Investment is also soon to be discarded. I suggest Releases to replace that. Nice huh? We release our dollars on the gentle breeze like doves released for the sake of Peace. You jerks should be glad I’m on your side.

But mathematics is not to be fooled by such Lakoff driven editing. Forty percent is still more than thirty-five percent and that is what Obama and Buffett are mostly referring to; an end to the Bush tax rates for a start and yet more ambitious monkey-grabbing above that. The mother-lovin’ AP dishes the numbers. Notorious math prodigy Barack Obama pronounces them so. One and a half trillion dollars in tax hikes over ten years. Do not fear, America. These will not touch Warren Buffett or at least not in his special place. As you recall, he takes nearly none of his pay in musty old income. The end of the Bush tax rates will mean about $5k out of his bursting pockets if Accounting cannot fudge that. Will he skip a spa weekend or leave the beach house unpainted for a season? It may well come to that but most likely he will manage. The true victim here, as always, is Your Federal Family, earlier known as Leviathan. While they have already spent the uncollected funds from these unpassed tax hikes and pledged much, much more they will never collect that boodle. Not half of it. Why? Ask me last year. But recognizing this simple fact you will also realize that all the dreadful things Obuffett claims will happen without passing these tax hikes will happen anyhow AND we will also have the debts and obligations from all these Releases. And you can bury that in your backyard. Also we must assume the obvious: the “cuts” are purest fiction. So what is to do?

The important thing, as Warren and Barack explain, is fairness. They have outlined their notion of fairness which is YOU paying up, and plenty. Of course we would just LOVE to do exactly that but myself, many of my acquaintances (to their surprise) and nearly any business you could name are sadly and involuntarily practicing the most definitive defense against income taxes: no income. So while we wait for the slower students to catch up we should prepare our own ideas and have them ready when the Registered Genii arrive in tears with empty hands and full diapers.

I propose The Metric System. It has a nice Euro-future-retro smell, doesn’t it? This doesn’t necessarily mean buying your gasoline in litres (although it would slash gas prices almost three fourths!). What it means is that we will apply the simple rules of Base 10 numbering to our complex systems of taxation. This may take a Constitutional Amendment as did income taxes in the first place but the ideas can be applied at lower levels through legislation and even regulation. The 28th Amendment reads simply: No federal levy shall be other than ten percent. So what does that mean? First off it means there is one income tax rate and it is ten percent. No deductions. Let’s say we leave the standard exemption at the $5600 or so it is now. Everything above that; ten percent. See, then Buffett and the future Mrs. Buffett, his “secretary” are finally taxed at identical rates! Fairness itself. This is fairer even than the Georgia-born FairTax which, while it has compelling advantages I have always found too complex. We don’t have that problem with The Metric System. Can we run the vital digestion and claws of Leviathan on ten percent? Probably not, that is part of the appeal. But don’t be too certain. With income taxes at ten percent there will have to be some changes. For one, there is no more charity, no such thing as a non-profit or more accurately, we will no longer discriminate between charitable and profit-driven firms. PETA will be treated like any other corporate entity. So will the various Buffett Trusts, heretofore untaxed. Call that a direct hit on the Buffettbird! There are plenty of businesses out there that find themselves suddenly non-profit so again the imperative of Fairness is taking the front seat.

What else? Well, capital gains will be ten percent. That is less than it is now but more than it should be according to fiscal libertarian purists so they take one in the face. We all will. This is one of the great things about my Metric System. It plays no favorites. Dividend taxes? Also ten percent. Inheritance taxes? Ten percent, Warren. Ten percent. What this will do to his strategy of consuming businesses impoverished by death taxes will be an ugly, ugly thing but he says he is prepared to sacrifice so let’s give him his opportunity. Tariffs? Ten percent. This is a wild increase for most of them but a serious cut for some strategic ones. The important thing though is that everyone in America and abroad will always know a) what that tariff is going to be and b) that we are not going to change it. The spiking of tariffs is not ordinarily something I would endorse or that one would apply as a corrective to a lack in economic velocity but in this instance we shall do so for consistency’s sake and for other effects. Now, all Chinese products have a ten percent tariff. Likewise French wine and Brazilian sugar. They may find this initially ghastly but at least they will know before they ever lift a finger to serve the American market what their tariff schedule will be. Ten percent. Always ten percent. Shall we engage a fancy lobbying firm in DC to try to get the tariff on escargot loosened a smidge? No need and no point. It’s ten percent, froggie. If you can’t handle ten percent best sell those snails to the Russkies! As you see the Ten Percent Solution has wonderous knock-on effects making a post-Congressional career as a lobbyist a much more uncertain affair. Likewise our Federal Trade Commission will have no reason to exist, nor will vast fractions of the standing bureaucracy, notably the IRS! You don’t need fancy accounting degrees to calculate ten percent of anything! Oil taxes? Ten percent. That is a serious cut. Payroll taxes? Ten percent, a cut but above where they are today with the temporary cuts. Corporate taxes? Ten percent. Yes, I know corporations don’t really pay taxes but when they’re ten percent, who the hell cares? Likewise the repatriation of overseas profits will be dunned at ten percent. And if they concoct some NEW fashion of separating you from your dollar? They are going to have to make it ten percent of something. But why can we not just cap levies at ten percent? Why do they have to be ten percent and no less? Oh, my lovelies, because you sweet little dreamy cutie pies are far too susceptible to diversion. The taxers will say, look, a silvery seashell! and when you return from your blink there will be a two percent ding taken out of your asses. But that will never be enough. It will grow and grow and grow as these things always do. Best to say, ten percent and no less. If it isn’t worth taking ten percent to fund it, it isn’t worth doing.

This may seem arbitrary and daft and too simple to be plausible, I understand. After all complexity is the language of genius, isn’t it? But if you apply those insults to this proposal or others, what terms fairly adhere to the policies we have? My mom reads these things all the way to the end so I may not say. But the Ten Percent Solution has one unassailable advantage over all its competitors: it can be explained and comprehended by any Joe in ten seconds. THAT is why the Buffetts, Obamas and their numberless cronies will fear, revile and lampoon it. Every citizen of this nation and every hopeful trader outside it will know EXACTLY what they owe today or will in the future. In such an environment, Leviathan is tamed and the Buffettbird needs a straight job!

Well, not really.

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