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Many Americans cringe at the fact that the wealthiest citizens of our country are being taxed at an extremely low percent, while low and middle class citizens are being taxed double the rate that they are. Warren Buffet who is one of the wealthiest Americans has publicly rejected this concept; he has often suggested that the wealthy be taxed at a higher rate than the general American population. In an article entitled Stop Coddling the Super Rich, Buffet explains how in 2011 he only paid 17.4 percent of his total income. Warrant Buffet states, “last year my federal tax bill―the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and my behalf―was $6,938,744” (Buffet 2). Buffet, who has an estimated fortune of $58.8 billion dollars winces at the fact that he pays less taxes than some of his office workers (Forbes). Not only does this concept seem absurd but it’s just plain wrong. Yet, many economists argue that by raising taxes for the wealthiest Americans in the nation, will not help our government stable our wailing economic crisis. They argue that since the percentage of individuals who are considered wealthy is only one percent, raising their taxes will not help to close the deficit in our economy.

According to the literature raising taxes for the wealthiest one percent of Americans does increase the revenue and enables legislatures to be able to fund existing programs that are at risk of being cut; in addition, with the new revenue legislatures are able to create new programs that benefit low income citizens. Leslie Lee author of Taxing the Rich: Lessons Learned from Proposition 63, Proposition 82, and Measure 66, points out that in 2004 California legislatures were dealing with the hard decision of cutting funding for pr...

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...oon as the tax breaks began our economy began to slow down and we relied more on our government to provide services for us with money they were barrowing.

The debate whether wealthy Americans should be taxed at a higher rate than other Americans will continue, but it is evident through data from past years that our economy has slowed down and our government is not able to provide the same social services it once was. The problem will continue if the wealthy are not taxed at the same percent as low and middle class citizens. Warren Buffet has said numerous times in interviews that he and his wealthy friends would love it if they would be taxed at the same rate as everyone else, but interest groups and lobbyist are preventing this from occurring. When everyone begins to look at the benefits of taxing the wealthy, then maybe legislation can be passed to raise taxes.