On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, Doug Henwood wrote:
> This was just a handful of guys ... [This] was about the estate tax... and
> Buffett is kind of a prick...who wouldn't lend his daughter $10,000 she
> desperately needed.
You actually have a real point there, now that I think about it. These guys weren't campaigning for progressive taxation in general (much less for the welfare state, like Soros). You didn't hear them saying Raise the Capital Gains Tax or Abolish Payroll taxes. In fact the tax they were campaigning against was the one tax in the universe that *wouldn't apply to them personally* -- only to their unfortunate heirs.
So there is actually a good case to be made that this was nothing but a perfectly designed PR campaign: maximum goodwill for minimum pain. Which rich men always value.
I think a few of them did later speak out for keeping the high end income tax brackets. But that was in the context of budget hawkery, which is very, very different -- especially since most of their taxes aren't on income.
So I guess you're right. Soros the super rich American social democrat really is kind of unique.
Michael