'Patriotic Millionaires' Lobby Congress for Higher Taxes on Rich (PBS NewsHour)

[eppur_se_muova]

Posting this because I like this guy's rebuttal to a point I've seen raised here on DU.

JEFFREY BROWN: Some of your members of your group today met with Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader.

And he has said of Buffett and -- and your efforts here, he said, you want to pay -- essentially, he and other says, you want to pay more taxes, be my guest. Go ahead. Just do it. Put your money where your mouth is. You don't need to -- you don't need to change the law. Go ahead and do it.

GARRETT GRUENER: Right, Grover's position -- I literally heard him saying this about an hour ago -- is that if you want to up your own taxes, why don't you just make a contribution?

And I think, frankly, that's pathetic. The U.S. government is not a charity. We didn't take -- we didn't pass the hat when we decided to go into Afghanistan. We don't pass a hat when we decide whether or not to -- the country needs another aircraft carrier or to build a freeway or what have you.

What we do is, we make a decision as Americans, and then we fund it. And, alas, we have gotten out of the habit recently of understanding that the decisions we make as a country are decisions we have to pay for. And we need to make sure that the funding resources, that the revenues are there in order to meet the choices we make collectively.

Now, I think it's a good thing to debate whether or not these taxes should be increased for the upper 1 percent. Obviously, I strongly believe we should. But if we decide that, well, then it's the law of the land, and we're all responsible for paying.
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more: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec11/millionaires_11-16.html

Video and transcript at link.