The billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett gave a 70 minute talk yesterday at a Hillary Clinton presidential fundraiser. He didn’t mince words and spent his time talking about something Middle America should have a great interest in: taxes. Or more precisely, how we’re paying more of our income in taxes than the richest Americans.
Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class.
Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.
Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. “I don’t have a tax shelter,” he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who “clean our offices” are taxed, to loud applause.
*emphasis mine
GTL Author Ron Beasley makes a couple really good points at his personal blog Middle Earth Journal:
I have always thought it must really bother the wealthy Republican aristocrats that the world’s third richest man was a Democrat and a populist.
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A majority of the American people know that those tax cuts may have produced jobs but not good jobs in the US. The jobs were created in countries where economic and political conditions make it possible to run sweat shops and increase the bottom line.
However it’s Justin Gardner of Donklephant who puts this into it’s best perspective:
There’s a reason a lot of Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich. Because Republicans are right, it is class warfare, but the rich are paying LESS than the middle class and even one of the richest people in the world acknowledges it.
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If he throws his credibility behind Hill, it’s going to be very hard for another Democratic candidate to match it.
Justin is of course right. Not only does Buffett have major financial clout, he also hasn’t been dealing with conservative smear campaigns for the last few years the way Soros has. If Warren Buffett is admitting there’s something wrong with our tax code. If he’s even obliquely stating that we are, in fact, in the middle of a class war and that so far “his side” is winning it’s a good sign.
Working class America has been getting the proverbial shaft for years and it’s only gotten worse, especially in the last 6 years. It’s good to see one of our most successful entrepreneurs admit there’s a problem.
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Other blogger reactions (Thanks in part to MemeOrandum): Angry Bear; Lawrance G. Lux – An absolute must-read on the history of wages; Christopher Tassava (After School Snack)
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