Hypocrisy By The Billion(aires)s

In his push for re-election, President Obama has enlisted some of his billionaire buddies to help him engage in a little class warfare.  Warren Buffett has been front and center for well over a year now.  His latest is in response to Mitch McConnell's comment that if Buffett really wanted to pay more he was free to "send in a donation".  Buffett response was "put up or shut up".

So Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. “And I’ll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,” he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, “I’m not worried.

To which the taxpayers of America should respond - YOU FIRST WARREN!  Because when push comes to shove, whether it is Warren Buffett or Michael Moore or the rest of the 1%, they really are not about paying their fair share - they just want to be seen saying the right thing.

The ironic thing from the video is that one of the "1%" interviewed said, with a straight face, that donating was "all for show" not realizing that what he was doing is being seen as also being "all for show".

Michael Moore's response to the request that he "put up or shut up" had to have been the most ironic of all.

Moore did not deny reports that his net worth exceeds $50 million, but stressed that he uses his money, which he called a “private matter,” to attack the GOP’s position on lower taxes.

So let me get this straight, it's a private matter how Mr. Moore uses his money....and yet he is calling for a 50% tax rate on the "wealthiest few".  Isn't it a private matter how THEY use their money Mr. Hypocrite Moore?

Noted economist Art Laffer, takes on the hubris, hypocrisy and the stupidity of the Billionaires for Higher Taxes in the Wall Street Journal.  First he hits on the disingenuousness of the Buffett/Obama claims.

Waving Mr. Buffett's op-ed for all to see, Mr. Obama wasted no time in proposing a surtax on millionaires called the "Buffett Rule." Putting aside all the oohing and ahhing over Mr. Buffett's selflessness, his effective tax rate on his true income would hardly budge if this "Buffett Rule" were applied. What's worse, raising the highest tax rates would most likely worsen the budget deficit and lead to a further weakening of the economy. Everyone would suffer.

Mr. Buffett stated in his op-ed that he paid $6,938,744 in total income and payroll taxes in 2010, representing 17.4% of his taxable income, which puts his taxable income just under $40 million. Although certainly a fantastic sum, $40 million actually understates Mr. Buffett's income in 2010 by more than 250-fold.

Mr. Buffett's net worth rose by $10 billion in 2010 to $47 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. That increase, an unrealized capital gain, is part of his total income by any standard definition, including the one used by the Congressional Budget Office. After also including a $1.6 billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Buffett's true income in 2010 was much closer to $11.6 billion than the $40 million figure cited in his op-ed. Hence his true effective tax rate was only 6/100ths of 1% as opposed to 17.4%. And these are just the additions to his income that we know about.

The "Buffett Rule" would not tax the vast majority of his shielded income, including either his unrealized capital gains, which are currently taxed at zero percent, or charitable contributions, which are tax deductible. If the "Buffett Rule" were applied as President Obama proposes, then Mr. Buffett's federal tax bill would have been $14.4 million, rather than the $6.9 million he actually paid. As a fraction of his true income, his effective tax rate would only have risen from 6/100ths of 1% to 12/100ths of 1%.

Emphasis mine. But wait - the hypocrisy is just beginning.....

Mr. Buffett's donation to the Gates Foundation goes to the heart of my critique of his public call for higher tax rates on the rich. Just look at the second contractual condition for his ongoing pledge to the Gates Foundation: "The foundation must continue to satisfy the legal requirements qualifying Warren's gift as charitable, exempt from gift or other taxes."

In other words, if his gift weren't tax sheltered he wouldn't give it. So much for "shared sacrifice."

Emphasis again mine.  Then comes the Michael Moore statement.....

Incidentally, I'm not the first to question Mr. Buffett's commitment to "shared sacrifice" in balancing the federal budget. In a 2007 CNBC interview, when asked why he shelters his money through tax-free strategies rather than writing big checks to Uncle Sam, Mr. Buffett responded: "I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter's foundation, my two sons' foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government."

Why - if I didn't know any better I would swear that this were Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor or Mitch McConnell speaking here and not Warren "The Rich Must Pay Their Fair Share" Buffett!

This is why I, and many other conservative thinkers, say that this is all "for show'.  These 1%ers know that they got their money as the result of lower tax policies (see the Laffer column for that).  They know that this "we must be forced to pay our fair share" thing will never happen.  It is all just one large kabuki theater show designed to keep the peasants mollified.  It is a show designed to keep the Democrats base on the reservation and to try to keep the big government regulators off of the backs of these "Billionaires for Higher Taxes".

But in the end, the show will not fix our problems - only a sound true free market economy will fix the deficit.  No more government flushing BILLIONS of dollars into businesses they KNOW are going to fail.  If green technology really is the tech of the future it will rise on it's own - without billions to prop it up.  Let the business owners take the risk AND the reward.  That is why people go into business isn't it?????