Billionaire investor Warren Buffett accused the Bush administration Saturday of pursuing tax cuts that favor business and the wealthy.
“If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning,” Buffett said in Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s annual report.
Corporate income taxes in fiscal 2003 accounted for 7.4 percent of all federal tax receipts, down from a post-war peak of 32 percent in 1952, Buffett said.
With the exception of 1983, last year’s percentage was the lowest recorded since data was first published in 1934.
“Even so, tax breaks for corporations (and their investors, particularly large ones) were a major part of the administration’s 2002 and 2003 initiatives,” Buffett said. Many large corporations now pay nothing close to the stated federal tax rate of 35 percent, he said.
Berkshire does not hesitate to pay its taxes, Buffett said. It almost certainly is among the country’s top 10 taxpayers and it will pay $3.3 billion in 2003 corporate income tax, about 2 1/2 percent of the total income tax to be paid by all U.S. corporations, he said.
With good reason. One of the real dangers of a free society is that it can turn into a hereditary plutocracy. Many historical democracies did just that. The heirs of genius inherit the money, but usually not the brains/vision/work that earned the pile in the first place. Inheritence taxes are one way to minimize the effect of huge masses of capital ending up in undeserving hands.
The Democrats should make Paris Hilton (or some comparable figure) the Willy Horton of this campaign. “Because President Bush eliminated the inheritance tax, Paris Hilton will get an extra $120 million from her trust fund, while your family’s share of the Federal deficit will go up $3000 dollars.”
(I don’t actually know the details of Paris Hilton’s financial arrangements–the numbers are just examples).
Warren Buffet is awesome. He actually had the balls to criticize prop 13 and suggest some property taxes should be raised in California, which is a political no-no. The fact that he has Arnold Schwarzenagger’s ear and is on his advisory board makes me much more comfortable about Arnie being governor. If Warren thinks Bush’s tax cuts are unfair, then they are unfair.
