There are plenty of valid grounds for criticizing the Bush tax plan (to take one example, dividends should be made tax-free at the corporate rather than the individual level), but this argument from Warren Buffett (who is rapidly becoming the Ross Perot of the NPR crowd) is not one of them: “When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a “break” requires — now or down the line — that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can’t deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party.” Well, not necessarily, Warren. If government spending were to be cut intelligently (and that’s a separate topic) there ought to be no need to impose an “equivalent burden” on other classes of taxpayer.