In a New York Times op-ed on August 14 2011, Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett wrote that the US should “stop coddling the super-rich” and called for tax rates to be raised “immediately on taxable incomes in excess of $1m, including, of course, dividends and capital gains”. The next morning, at a televised “town hall” meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, President Barack Obama praised Mr Buffett’s intervention. A few weeks later a “Buffett rule”, requiring that millionaires pay higher taxes as a share of their incomes than middle-class Americans, featured in the budget plan the president sent to Congress.
伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)首席执行官沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)去年8月14日在《纽约时报》(New York Times)专栏版上撰文称，美国“不应再溺爱超级富翁”，他还呼吁“立即提高100万美元以上应税收入适用的税率，这些收入当然包括股息和资本利得”。次日上午，美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)出现在电视里，他在当时于明尼苏达州坎农瀑布镇(Cannon Falls)举行的“市政厅”会议上，对巴菲特的挺身而出表示了赞赏。数周之后，在奥巴马提交给国会的预算案中，就包含了一项“巴菲特规则”(Buffett rule)，意在使百万富翁的纳税额占收入之比高于美国中产阶级。