Why? Because, unlike many wealthy corporate CEOs who insist “trickle down” economics is best for everyone, Buffett believes he and his super-rich friends “have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.”
Just days before Obama signed the Dec. 17, 2010, tax break extension into law, Buffett told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, “The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”
A column written by Buffett appeared in the The New York Times on Aug. 15 with the headline, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich.” Buffett shared that he paid $6,938,744 in income tax last year, only 17.4 percent of his taxable income. “That’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office,” he wrote. “Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.”
Speaking to a town hall audience in rural Cannon Falls, Minn., on Monday, President Obama quoted from the NY Times column, telling the crowd that small-town Americans like them probably don’t make as much money as Warren Buffett, but pay more of their income in taxes. “You don’t get those tax breaks. You’re paying more than that. Now I may be wrong, but I think you’re a little less wealthy than Warren Buffett. Now that’s just a guess,” Obama said, eliciting laughter from the audience. He told them closing the U.S. deficit gap has to include tax increases for the rich.
“I put a deal before the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, that would have solved this problem,” the president said, “and he walked away because his belief was we can’t ask anything of millionaires and billionaires and big corporations in order to close our deficit.”
Cannon Falls was the first stop on Obama’s three-state bus tour through middle America intended to connect with voters as he embarks on his 2012 re-election campaign — a campaign expected to focus on jobs and the economy, which looks like the make-or-break issue for any candidate hoping to woo American voters.
