There are few people in America who do not know who Warren Buffett is. His financial skills with his company Berkshire Hathaway have led to him being dubbed “The Oracle from Omaha.”
Mr. Buffett is the second-richest man in America, just behind Microsoft Founder Bill Gates. Mr. Buffett is the third-richest man in the world. His net worth is estimated at $44.6 billion.
So there is one obvious question that needs to be asked.
Why am I subsidizing Warren Buffett?
Mr. Buffett’s company receives subsides from the government to build unprofitable wind turbine farms to generate power from the wind. Mr. Buffett has been quite candid about why he does this.
Back in April, Mr. Buffett made the following statement: “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
What does that mean in plain English?
It means taxpayers are subsidizing Mr. Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.
What it means is there are millions of real Americans out there worried about their jobs and their kids’ futures who are subsidizing the second-richest man in America.
It means there are millions of real Americans who have lost their health insurance or who have seen their health care costs skyrocket who are subsidizing the third-richest man in the world.
During the 2012 election, Barack Obama repeatedly invoked the so-called “Buffett Rule” against Mitt Romney. This is something Buffett allegedly came up with that said the rich should pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.
Mr. Buffett is simply a liberal hypocrite. He claims he thinks the wealthy should pay their “fair share” of taxes, yet does everything possible to minimize his personal and corporate tax liability.
Congress returns next week for the lame duck session of Congress. The Democrats have stated reauthorization of the Wind Power Production Tax Credit, the Buffett subsidy, is one of their major priorities. This is one of the reasons why so many of these wealthy liberals like Tom Steyer, contributed so heavily to Democrats this year. They want their cronyist payback.
When the Republicans in the House of Representatives crafted their tax package this year, they killed the Wind Power Production Tax Credit. The credit had expired at the end of 2013 and the House GOP made certain it stayed dead. Unfortunately, these subsidies are like monsters in 1950s-era horror movies. You aren’t really sure if they are dead until the credits roll and even then they could be back for a sequel. If this were a horror movie, this subsidy might be called “The Creature from the Potomac Lagoon.”
If this past week’s elections said anything, it said Americans are tired of the crony-liberalism that has been going on since the Obama Regime took over. Real Americans are tired of the government being used to enrich the well connected while everyone else suffers.
In the lame duck session, deals will be cut quickly and the bills will be Nancy Pelosi specials. In other words, the senators and members of Congress will have to pass the bills to see what is in them.
That isn’t what the American people voted for.
The House Republicans should make it clear that they are going to come in, fund the government until January and let the new GOP majority vote on the spending priorities.
One thing almost everyone agrees on is that real Americans don’t need to be subsidizing Mr. Buffett.
Mr. Buffett has done quite well on his own.
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