I Say Something Nice About A Republican

If you've read this blog for very long then you'll know that I don't have much respect for today's Republicans and rarely have anything good to say about any of them. I think most of them, at least the ones in Congress, are greedy self-serving jerks who favor the rich at the expense of all other Americans. But I need to set that aside for today, because a Republican has done something he should be praised for.

Last summer, billionaire Warren Buffett wrote an article saying the rich in America (including himself) should be paying more in taxes. Many congressional Republicans criticized Mr. Buffett, and said he should write the Treasury a check if he wants but shouldn't ask other rich people to be taxed more. Buffett responded by saying he would contribute one dollar to the U.S. Treasury for every dollar a congressional Republican donated (and three dollars for every dollar Mitch McConnell donated).

At that time, I posted about Buffett's challenge and said I doubted any Republican would donate anything -- even though many of them are very rich themselves. Well, I was wrong. It seems that there is a Republican, Rep. Scott Rigell (pictured) of Virginia, who is not only donating 15% of his congressional salary this year to the U.S. Treasury, but did the same thing last year (before Buffett's challenge). Rigell will donate $26,000 this year and donated $23,000 last year (when a clerical error caused slightly less that 15% to be deducted).

Rigell wrote Buffett a letter accepting his challenge, and challenged him to also match the money he donated last year. Buffett has written him back and says he will write a check covering both years of April 20th (which will give other congresspeople time to donate also).

Now I don't know much about Rigell's finances. He may be filthy rich for all I know. It really doesn't matter. Giving a portion of his salary back to his country is a good thing, and I commend him for it. After all, matching any money given by Congress is not going to make a dent in Buffett's finances either. It's the principle that matters.

I'm sure I would disagree with most or all of Rigell's politics, but this action of donating part of his salary to his government is commendable.

(NOTE -- Saying something nice about a Republican didn't hurt nearly as bad as I thought it might, but I'm pretty sure they won't do anything soon to make me do it again.)