Gates sees tax changes ahead
Echoing what investment guru Warren Buffett has been saying for months, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates said the wealthy should pay more as the U.S. continues to grapple with how to rein in its budget deficit.
“There’s no doubt that as you look at balancing budgets to the degree you need more revenue” that lawmakers will need to look to the wealthy “to get a little bit more from them proportionately than you get from people as a whole,” Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
“I think that’s pretty likely.”
Later, Gates, the world’s second-richest man and co-chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the U.S. is compromising its “values” in its approach to reducing federal spending.
The automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, that took effect earlier this year target discretionary spending programs including education, infrastructure and research, which Gates said he finds worrisome.
“The sequester, I don’t think reflects our values,” he said. “There will have to be a discussion about funding the future.”