I wrote recently about Warren Buffet's call to tax the rich. In it he issued a challenge : He would donate $1 million to charity if the people in the Forbes 400 would admit they proportionately pay less taxes than their secretaries.

The only billionaire to have accepted his challenge has been Mark Cuban. He also happens to be the only billionaire blogger. He is not only known as "The Blog Maverick" for his obvious reference to his basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. He became an instant "blogebrity" when it was revealed he was the silent investor of the pioneering blog network, Weblogs, Inc.

In Warren Buffet, Taxes and the Presidency, not only agrees with Buffet that he pays a disproportionately low percentage of taxes. He ups the ante by proposing a restructuring of consumer taxes :

Its also wrong that those who must live paycheck to paycheck find themselves paying the same amount of taxes on consumables as the super rich. That 8pct sales tax on life's basic necessities is real time cash out of pocket, a far greater percentage of income and much more expensive money than the federal taxes we pay the following April 15th.

I would be perfectly fine paying a higher percentage of income, both in federal income taxes and as part of a consumption tax on luxury items. If Warren wants to buy or build a yacht for a hundred million dollars. Nail him with a 10pct federal tax surcharge. If I want to buy a Gulfstream Jet for 40mm dollars. Nail me with a 10pct federal surcharge above and beyond current taxes. There are plenty of items, from jewelry to 100k plus cars to 10mm dollars or more first, 2nd and 3rd homes. If you can afford to buy these kind of goodies, and choose to, cough it up.

Yet here's what really is interesting about his proposition : Tax the hell out of the super wealthy (Forbes estimates their collective worth is $1.54 trillion, up from $290 billion the previous year); yet decrease spending by each percentage of tax raised and completely open up the process by which the government spends said money :

Right now I hate paying taxes because I feel like I'm giving money to a known crack addict. However much you give, its not enough. They will buy their crack, get a short term high and soon be back asking for more.

The federal government , whether in Republican or Democratic hands is the same way. No matter how much you give, they are always asking for more, more, more. Always spending on the ridiculous, without remorse and without the ability to restrain itself. Just like a drug addict.

If you are going to raise my taxes, I want somethings in return.

Raise my taxes by 1 pct, by every 1 pct you cut federal spending. Your choice of raising taxes on luxury items, or on annual income of 10mm dollars per year or more. Cutting spending means the government needs to raise less which allows you to raise the income threshold on which you charge this "Forbes 400 surcharge"

And I want 1 more thing. I want transparency. The way the government publishes information on money it spends ,receives and owes is a joke. No one in this country has any real knowledge of how much our country really owes. There are so many hidden and unpublished liabilities that if our country were a public company, someone would go to jail.

It is really thought provoking for his call for transparency and opening the government's spending process. Democracies are supposed to be systems of check and balances and at this point in time it is almost impossible for US Americans to truly follow everything the government and politicians say they will do but actually end up doing.

Read the whole post and tell us what you think.