8.25pm GMT

Our finance and economics editor Heidi Moore has been trawling the fiscal cliff op-eds today and, in what will be a regular feature, has this analysis.

Warren Buffett

Let's forget about the rich and ultrarich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if – gasp – capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased. The ultrarich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities.

Warren Buffett writes a searing op-ed in the New York Times, pleading for higher taxes on the rich. He takes aim at the prevailing conventional wisdom, espoused by many Republicans, that higher taxes will stall the economy by preventing the wealthy from pouring money into investments. Buffett argues that any investment is better than leaving money languishing in a savings account, earning less than 1% in interest – and investors know that. Because there are no appealing alternatives for their money, they will continue to invest even if they have to pay higher taxes when they sell their stocks or bonds.

Buffett's main position is that the rich get too many tax breaks as it is. Wipe them all out and replace them with standard taxes of 30% and 35%, and it will help America raise the amount of money it needs. There is one significant difference between his proposal and that of President Obama and other Democrats: Buffett is asking for higher taxes on those making over $500,000, a bracket everyone can safely consider high earners. Obama wants to raise taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making above $250,000 a year.

Buffett is one of the few men with the standing to make this argument: he is not America's biggest billionaire but he is arguably its most influential because of his reputation for plain speaking and financial success. He has also called for America to "stop coddling the super-rich", so he has a history of populism.

Why is this worth noting? Because any time a prominent member of the business community makes a counter-intuitive argument, it reveals the wide divergence of opinions on the fiscal cliff. The business world, it bears repeating, is not a monolith. And not all of it falls on the same side of the argument over the fiscal cliff.

Billionaire Warren Buffet is perfectly relaxed about paying more tax. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Senator Bob Corker

The 112th Congress can be remembered as responsible elected leaders who put America on a path to fiscal solvency, unleashing a period of economic growth, job creation and innovation – a tremendous legacy. Or we can be known as a feckless Congress and a feckless president who abdicated this responsibility and continued to saddle the country with debt, uncertainty and a void of leadership.

Corker, a Republican senator from Tennessee, is one of a growing chorus of voices in Washington that is sick of the fact that Congress can't seem to come to a deal. He writes in the Washington Post that Congress has had two years – and two dry runs – to solve the problem of the fiscal cliff. The only thing missing, he says, is "lack of political courage".

This echoes another Washington Post commentary, by the former US senator Trent Lott a few days ago. Lott bemoaned the foot-dragging and gridlock that has characterized recent Congressional negotiations. His piece was titled Washington lost its love of the deal, and he echoed many of the frustrations felt by outsiders to Washington: why can't Congress just do its job?

Lott's advice to Congress is in fact a little depressing, because what he encourages elected representatives to do is, simply, what they are already paid to do and apparently are not doing: "The House and Senate also need to return to regular order, beginning with subcommittees and committees doing their work as a matter of routine. Have hearings and oversight meetings. Mark up the bills. Have votes on amendments and then move bills to the floor for consideration. Have robust debate and votes on amendments by members of both parties, in the best traditions of the Senate. Defeat bills or pass them, but take final action, and go to conference with conferees from both bodies. Vote on final passage and send it to the president to sign or veto."

That's all US civics 101. Corker and Lott seem baffled by how Washington forgot how to practice it.

Heidi N Moore