Convicted Fraudster Conrad Black Latest To Attack Buffett For Wanting To Raise Taxes On Rich
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
In a National Review Online article, convicted fraudster Conrad Black became the latest member of the conservative media to attack billionaire investor Warren Buffett for calling for higher taxes on the rich, writing: “I am far from an iconoclast, but I am getting a little weary of Warren Buffett's posturing as a social democrat. He is a brilliant investor and a pretty good aphorist, and his shtick as friendly, folksy Uncle Warren, the Sage of Omaha, though a tired routine, has been an effective one.”
Black also devoted space to bemoaning the fate of “run-of-the-mill millionaires”: “The top one percent of American income-earners, as he is perfectly aware, a number that gets us pretty far down into the ranks of run-of-the-mill millionaires, pay 38 percent of federal personal income taxes, the lower 50 percent pay 3 percent, and nearly half of American families pay none.”
From Black's August 18 article:
I am far from an iconoclast, but I am getting a little weary of Warren Buffett's posturing as a social democrat. He is a brilliant investor and a pretty good aphorist, and his shtick as friendly, folksy Uncle Warren, the Sage of Omaha, though a tired routine, has been an effective one. But he is an extremely wealthy man because he is a relentlessly hardball operator. His masquerade as a public-policy expert is starting to resemble nothing so much as the antics of entertainers who try to translate their renown as vocalists or actors into political influence. But most of them are airheads, oblivious to the fact that it is incongruous to opine on the exigencies of a reformed welfare state while paying below the minimum wage to the undocumented immigrants who roll their tennis courts.
No reasonable person debates Warren Buffett's talents any more than Barbra Streisand's, but in his case, he knows what he is saying is bunk, and he should know that most of his audience is suspicious of his motives. His comments in the New York Times this week on why he should be taxed more are spurious, and presumably just another public-relations exercise by a mega-billionaire who sees what a shambles his friends in the administration are making, and is tilting farther left to preempt public-relations problems. His years of padding around university campuses with Bill Gates in their corduroy trousers and viyella shirts explaining that they weren't really interested in money were hard enough to take, but this next act, solo, as a slimmed-down Santa without beard, sleigh, or red uniform is wearing thin.
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Warren Buffett knows the reinsurance and many other businesses, but he seems not to realize how easily politicians yield to the temptations of demagogy. President Obama is already grumbling about the “billionaires and millionaires,” and elaborating on his redistributive notions on how to “share the wealth.” Anyone who owns a family home in all but the very inner cities or outer suburbs without a lot of debt on it would probably qualify for the president's description of being wealthy, and Warren Buffett made the point in his Times piece that most of those people are far from flush now.
More important, he knows, but did not write, that even if all his mega-billionaire comrades were soaked 50 percent of their imputable income, it would not lower the present and projected federal annual deficits by more than one third of one percent. This prompts the question of why he is playing to the galleries like this. The top one percent of American income-earners, as he is perfectly aware, a number that gets us pretty far down into the ranks of run-of-the-mill millionaires, pay 38 percent of federal personal income taxes, the lower 50 percent pay 3 percent, and nearly half of American families pay none. Of course everyone but the very rich is worried, and most would be severely threatened if their taxes were increased.
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Warren Buffett is one of the country's most respected citizens, and has earned that status and held it for a long time. He should not be throwing raw meat to the soak-the-rich advocates, whether of the envious or arithmetically challenged variety. If he said what he really thinks, the country would listen, and it could make a positive difference. With so little leadership in the public sector, his time has come; he shouldn't squander it on nostrums like mega-billionaire taxes.
Previously:
Fox's Eric Bolling Asks If Warren Buffett Is “Completely A Socialist”