THE CONSCIENCE OF WARREN BUFFETT

[Geee]

Human Events:

Warren Buffett, the tax-happy billionaire who has become the anointed conscience of the American upper class, told Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” that jacking up taxes on the “wealthiest Americans” won’t have any deleterious effect on job creation. ”No, and I think would have a great effect in terms of the morale of the middle class, who have seen themselves paying high payroll taxes, income taxes,” said Buffett. ”And then they watch guys like me end up paying a rate that’s below that, you know, paid by the people in my office.”

So once again, the future of America is held hostage to the paycheck of Warren Buffett’s secretary, who Buffett dishonestly asserts is paying a higher effective tax rate than he does. That’s only true if you ignore a ton of the different taxes he pays, and the fact that much of his income is taxed two, three, or four times. And no matter how effective tax rates are calculated, a person of Buffett’s wealth pays as much in taxes as a hundred people from the very broadly-defined “middle class.” But why bring logic and reason into what even Buffett admits is an entirely emotional discussion?

Mitt Romney got into a lot of trouble for musing that 47 percent of Americans are getting more from Big Government than they put in, so there’s little chance of attracting their vote with a campaign based on economic liberty and fiscal sanity. But Warren Buffett just delivered a far more brutal insult to the American character. He’s saying that Americans are envious children, whose morale will perk up a bit when they see their class enemies getting hit with higher taxes. As if the “morale” of the middle class had anything to do with these years of malaise, compared to the effect of government tax and regulatory policies!