The Warren Buffett Smokescreen

Tonight, Jon Stewart gave Warren Buffett two entire segments on The Daily Show (more than he gave the President of the United States) to push his asinine higher tax plan. That’s the most time he’s given anyone.

This wasn’t surprising, seeing that Jon Stewart is a self professed Socialist and Warren Buffett doesn’t really pay much in taxes anyway, yet his companies benefited hundreds of billions of dollars from tax-funded bailouts. Of course this man wants higher taxes, even if it means he’d pay a couple million more because in the end guys like him and his companies rake in hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in tax credits, subsidies, exemptions and bailout funds. If I were him, I’d want EVERYONE to pay more taxes.

Anyone who buys Buffett’s “I’d like to pay more taxes” act is a sucker. Buffett is willing to pay a few million more because that would mean many pay millions more and his companies receive billions from gov’t. I, too, would be willing to pay 10% more of my income if I knew that the gov’t would give my company back 10 fold that amount in bailouts.

America will buy Buffett’s bullshit hook, line and sinker because he’s filthy rich and old and eats ice cream. He seems harmless yet brilliant. We assume that he made every penny honestly and that he’s never done anything morally incorrect because he’s that lovable white guy that everyone knows. That’s because we’re a nation of suckers that doesn’t like to dig any deeper than what’s represented on the surface. This is how we ended up here in the first place. We don’t investigate or ask questions, we accept things at face value and move on without looking at the details or the consequences. 

The sad part is that the President ran on this idea as his main economic plan and he was re-elected and most people will agree with Buffett’s NYT Op-Ed without actually understanding the ramifications (or even reading the article). Even worse is that the major battle in currently being waged in Congress isn’t whether or not we should cut spending and retain revenue levels or retain spending levels and increase revenues, it’s a foregone conclusion that no one is touching our spending, calling the notion to cut into the largest governmental budget in the history of humanity as “barbaric”. The only battle in Congress is whether Republicans will move off their “tax pledge” and vote for tax hikes to prevent taxmageddon or be labeled inhumane and ridiculed by the media and Democrats for the rest of their political careers. 

@Suga_Shane