It’s Time For The GOP To Sacrifice Warren Buffett And The Billionaires
December 6, 2012 by Wayne Allyn Root
Hello. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. I’m a small businessman who believes we are all over-taxed. I would not raise anyone’s taxes — not one dollar. Saving this economy is all about cutting spending dramatically. We don’t have a tax problem in America; we have a spending and entitlements problem. If I were in the GOP Congressional leadership, I’d never vote for a tax increase on anyone. Let Barack Obama pass a tax increase that sends the economy off the cliff by himself, then he can take the full blame.
But since John Boehner is the worst negotiator on Earth and is a weak-willed coward who has already showed his hand and offered Obama $800 billion in tax increases (the exact number Obama wanted in the first place), then I have a suggestion for the GOP.
Since Obama’s pet billionaires like Warren Buffett are so quick to sell out the upper middle class, two can play at that game.
Boehner obviously is frightened to death that Obama has GOP Congressmen between a rock and a hard place. He sees only two choices: Go along with Obama and raise taxes or be painted as “the party of the rich.” So since the weak-willed GOP is dead set on compromise (a terrible mistake unless it gets massive spending cuts in return — which it will never get from Obama), here’s a compromise that turns the tables on Obama.
I say it’s time to sacrifice the billionaires to save small business and the GOP.
Let’s start with the Warren Buffett story. Buffett is a complete phony, a con man. He’s the biggest tax avoider in America, yet he tries to portray himself as a “fair and generous man” who gladly wants to pay more taxes. It’s time to call his bluff.
Buffett and his best friend, Obama, have played a con game on the American people for too long. A Washington version of three-card monte, they misdirect, distract and divide with class warfare. The truth is the “top 2 percent” they are so keen on taxing isn’t made up of billionaires with yachts and private planes. It’s mostly a bunch of hard-working small-business owners (like me) who have no money to spare.
Buffett is a world-class phony and hypocrite. Buffett or any other billionaire liberal can voluntarily pay 35 percent tax rates (or higher) anytime he wants. Why not 50 percent? Or 90 percent? Billionaires don’t need the money, or so says Buffett. If he’s so keen on paying more taxes than his secretary, why does he choose to pay her with income that will be taxed at higher rates and yet convert all his income to capital gains, so he pays the smallest amount? What a hypocrite!
Are you aware Buffett is in a billion-dollar tax fight with the Internal Revenue Service? Yes, for years, Buffett has paid the best tax lawyers money can buy to not pay $1 billion one of his companies owes the United States. If you’re rich, generous and intent on paying more, why not just pay what you owe?
The reason, of course, is because Buffett doesn’t intend to pay more. He wants you and me to pay more. His accountants and lawyers will keep his taxes low or nonexistent. High income-tax rates are another way billionaires like Buffet, who don’t live off their income, increase their advantage over small businessmen like me who can compete with them only by investing what we have left after we pay our taxes.
Oh, by the way, did you know Buffett’s father was a well-connected Congressman? He’s had a silver spoon in his mouth and gold-plated connections since the day he was born. He couldn’t care less about you and me. He cares only about the next sweetheart deal he can get from Obama. See this article.
Small businessmen like me don’t get sweetheart deals from government. We have no teams of lobbyists or lawyers on call. We need our earnings — desperately. We use our earnings to pay our employees, support our families, pay for our children’s college educations and provide for our retirement (small-business owners have no pensions). But most importantly, small-business owners need our money to start and expand our businesses or, in this horrible Obama economy, save them. Take more of our money with higher taxes and we won’t be able to pay for our employees’ health insurance, make payroll or keep our doors open in a crisis. And we’ll never be able to retire. Is that fair?
Mr. Buffett, please stop lying. Stop lumping us into your group. An income of $250,000 to $500,000 is hardly rich, and we need our money. Billionaires like you don’t create jobs. Seventy-five percent or more of new jobs are created by small business. How dare Buffett and Obama play a con game, saying: “The rich don’t need the extra money.” That’s a big, fat, Pinocchio-like lie.
Here’s another big, fat lie. When Democrats quote 80 percent tax rates of yesteryear to make today’s top rate of 35 percent seem “low,” they are leaving out all kinds of facts. On Wall Street omitting facts is called fraud.
First, that high rate of yesteryear applied only to the obscenely wealthy, not small business. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 79 percent top rate applied to only one billionaire in the whole country, and that rate kicked in only at an income of almost $100 million (in today’s dollars). Did you ever hear Obama say that?
Second, deductions were much higher in those days, so the higher rate was grossly misleading. Third, it was primarily a cash economy wherein the tax rate was meaningless because few ever paid it. The fact is those 80 percent (or higher) tax rates applied only to billionaire industrialists (like bigmouth hypocrite Warren Buffett).
Buffett and Obama are trying to divide the GOP, force it to sacrifice small business or be painted as “the party of the rich.” The GOP should break that stranglehold by positioning itself as the protectors of small business. The sweet spot where all the jobs are created is small-business owners earning $250,000 to $500,000. To prevent a collapse of the U.S. economy, the GOP needs to become the courageous fighter for small business.
Let’s give Buffett a taste of his own medicine. Forget the super-rich and the corporate CEOs. The phonies with the private jets and yachts supported Obama and claim to want to pay more taxes, so let them. The GOP should propose a deal to raise tax rates starting at incomes of $5 million, $10 million and $20 million per year. Add a special tax increase (a huge one) to incomes over $100 million per year. Hit Buffett where it hurts. Let’s see if the old, hypocritical geezer agrees to that one. I’m betting he blows a gasket. I’m betting he whines and complains and says it’s too expensive and the billionaires will leave the country, which exposes his lie and hypocrisy. He wants the tax increases on other people: the middle class, the upper middle class and small business. You and me. Let’s turn the tables on him. If Boehner is going to compromise on taxes anyway, let’s sacrifice the billionaires.
Result? The GOP is now the hero, the protector of small business. Thirty million small-business owners will owe a debt of gratitude, along with everyone who works for them. That’s probably a total of 50 million to 75 million people the GOP has stood up for, saved their businesses and saved their jobs.
In return for sacrificing the truly rich, the GOP should demand Democrats give a minimum of three to one in spending cuts: cuts that take effect right now — not 10 years in the future when a new weak-willed Congress will make sure they never happen at all. If Obama won’t do that deal, then he proves he’s the enemy of small business, he’s the protector of fat cat billionaires, and he has no interest in reducing the debt. If that’s the case, the GOP should walk away, let Obama send the economy off the fiscal cliff and allow Obama to take 100 percent of the blame. It’s his economy. Let him own it.
Oh, and he can keep Warren Buffett, too.
I’m Wayne Allyn Root for PersonalLiberty.com. See you next week. Happy holidays and God bless.
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