To die rich

Andrew Carnegie once said "To die rich is to die disgraced.” Which brings us to today's news.

First, Warren Buffett’s contribution of about $1.5 billion a year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be used to seek cures for the world’s worst diseases and improve American education, Bill Gates said Monday.

Buffett said his children have known all along that much of their family’s wealth would be given back to society.
. . .
The gifts would be worth nearly $37 billion, which represents the bulk of the $44 billion that Buffet’s stock holdings are worth today.

Second is this: Newsweek magazine launched the

"Giving Back Awards" in recognition of people who, through bravery or generosity, genius or passion, devote themselves to helping others. From hundreds of nominations, these folks were chosen for imaginative approaches to difficult problems. We hope they remind you of someone—maybe yourself.

Third, NETWORK, the Catholic social justice lobby reports that the Senate will take up a compromise reform of the estate tax (H.R. 5638) as early as today, June 27. The House passed this compromise on a 269-156 vote on June 22. With permanent exemptions and drastically lower taxation rates, the damage caused by reducing the estate tax would nearly equal that of repeal.

You can take action here.

In the spirit of Warren Buffet and the people named in the Newsweek article, we at Albany Catholic plan to share our tax relief with the folks at Catholic Charities. You can learn more about them here. Can ahyone get a homily out of this?