Once again Warren Buffet is in the news insisting that the
wealthy should pay more taxes. The problem is that the real wealthy, like
Warren Buffet, would not be affected by a hike in income tax rates. He and most of the really wealthy hold their
wealth in the form of unrealized capital gains, not the type of income he
proposes to raise taxes on.
A raise in the taxes on earned income is designed to prevent
people from becoming wealthy. In a 2004 interview
with Charlie Rose, Buffet’s wife Susan said that his lifelong ambition was to
become the richest man in the world. He
is using his influence in Washington to insure that he has no competition.
If Buffet thinks men like him should be glad to pay more
taxes, why doesn’t he pay his own? He has
been fighting the IRS since 2002 for the over $1 billion in taxes that he owed than. And
his unpaid tax bills are adding up. Just last year NetJets, one of his companies
sued for $642.7 million in taxes and this year the IRS is suing NetJets for an
additional $366.3 million in unpaid taxes.
Buffet is a snake oil salesman. He gets in bed with
politicians and takes home the bacon.
When the president killed the Keystone Pipeline, Buffet won. His Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad
ships the oil. The $700 billion bailout
of U.S. banks saved his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs. He pays his lobbyists $9.8 million a year and
he gets his money’s worth.
Buffet is the kind of crony capitalist that is a cancer on
the American character.
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