By now you've heard His Highness touting the Buffett Rule as the fix all for the country's budget problems. He's out giving speeches about how the tax code has to be 'fair', how millionaires must pay their 'fair share'. Well, I agree with that in principle, but Obama's reasons have nothing to do with 'being fair'.
The 'Buffett Rule' is no rule at all, just a suggestion from billionaire Warren Buffett that he doesn't pay enough taxes. It is not legislation, it is not a bill before Congress. It is smoke and mirrors designed to convince the '99%s' that anyone making over a million a year should pay at least 30% in income taxes. This has become a rallying cry for Obama, and the tip of the spear in his class warfare strategy for winning re-election.
A couple of facts stand in the way of this:
First, Warren Buffett is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 billion dollars. Not exactly a member of the '99%ers', is he?
Warren Buffett, and his various entities, owe the Federal Government more that $1 billion dollars in back taxes. Rather than happily delivering a check to the IRS, his army of lawyers is fighting tooth and nail to keep from paying the bill.
IF the Buffett rule was implemented in full, the amount of money raised would be about $5.1 billion. The Federal Government burns through more than that in 2 hours. For Obama to be suggesting to us that implementation of the Buffett Rule would solve this country's fiscal disaster is an absolute lie.
Warren Buffett and his companies have made hundreds of millions of dollars during the Obama regime directly as a result of Obama's decisions. I am not suggesting anything dirty has happened between Buffett and Obama - even though it looks suspicious, I have no evidence that would specifically indicate collusion. However, for Buffett and Obama to suggest they are at the forefront of 'fairness' while making tons of money is complete bullshit.
Those on the left decry how the rich Republicans running Wall Street are ruining the country, raping the 99%s of their money and their future in order to pad their own corporate pockets. The fact is that most of the Wall Street establishment is on the political left in this country. Those are RICH, WHITE, MALE DEMOCRATS running Wall Street.
I haven't heard anyone from the mainstream media ask Buffett directly how much he pays in taxes. What is his current tax rate?
There is nothing standing in the way of Warren Buffett or his rich, liberal pals writing checks to the IRS for however many billions of dollars they wish to give to the Federal Government so that they can see themselves as 'fair'. No law, no rule, prevents George Soros from signing over 95% of his wealth, for the good of the country. Why isn't anyone asking these guys why they haven't done this?
Oh, and by the way ... If we want to talk about fairness in regards to taxes, lets talk about the 48% of legal citizens in this country who pay nothing in income taxes? Those Millions who pay nothing, yet benefit fully. Not to mention the additional millions of illegals who benefit and also pay nothing.
Where is the fairness in that?
Update - The supposed trigger that made Warren Buffett come out and complain he wasn't paying enough taxes was the supposed fact that his secretary (who makes over $200K) paid a higher overall income tax rate than Buffett himself. I don't know if that's true, or if it was a script written for him by the White House. In any case, if made great left wing headlines - secretary pays more taxes than billionaire.
Well, Buffett is not the only one who can make this claim. Turns out Obama's own secretary in the White House (who makes about $95K) paid a higher tax rate than the Obamas did last year. The Obamas, who made about $400K last year, paid an income tax rate of a hair over 20%. They took advantage of tax laws and shelters to keep from having to pay the higher rate that would have applied to their income bracket - nothing illegal. Their secretary paid around 24%.
Obama is out trying to make political points by touting the Buffett Rule as a way to achieve tax fairness - all while publicly violating that exact example of fairness - and oh by the way not only not apologizing for it, but stating there was nothing wrong in taking advantage to the tax loopholes to cut their IRS bill.
Hypocrites.
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