One of the things I've learned in life is that talk is cheap. If you want to know what a person's all about, watch what they do, not what they say. The latest cheap talk artist is the so-called Oracle of Omaha, aka Mr. Warren Buffett. He's the guy who, in a recent New York Times editorial, talked the talk about the super-rich not paying their fair share of taxes. Walking the walk? The Buff-meister's most recent move was one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase with his mouth.
On Thursday, or any other day subsequent to his Times sermon, Mr. Buffett could have put his money where his mouth is, and sent a check to the Internal Revenue Service for whatever amount he deemed his appropriate "fair share." Columnist Pat Buchanan called him on that reality. "Why doesn’t he set an example and send a check for $5 billion to the federal government? He’s got about $40 billion," Pat told MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough. "Let [him] send checks and set an example instead of writing op-eds," he added.
Yet even Pat was being a sport. $5 billion is only 12.5 percent of $40 billion. In his Times piece, Warren was moaning about how he paid only 17.4 percent of his taxable income in taxes. The extra 4.9 percent would take almost $7 billion from his $40 billion stash. Of course, we all know Warren was talking about taxing income, not savings. Government would never tax Warren's savings--at least not while he's still alive.
But the numbers are totally irrelevant, since Warren never coughed up a dime in voluntary taxes. That's hardly surprising. You don't become one of the richest men on the planet by giving your money away.
You do however become rich, or richer as the case may be, by making investments. And oddly enough on Thursday, that's exactly what Warren did with the same $5 billion Pat Buchanan challenged him to send to the government. In a way, Warren sorta did: he dumped it in Bank of America. That's the same Bank of America which took a bailout from the American taxpayers Warren cares so much about. The same Bank of America which also got another $91.4 billion in an up-until-now secret loan from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Thus, when it came time for Warren to actually put his money where his mouth is, he did what many of our super-rich progressive phonies do: he invested in his Wall Street buddies, even as Main Street Americans continue to take it on the economic chin. And fyi, the Oracle was instantly rewarded for his "generosity," pulling in a quick $280 million in profits--in 24 hours.
That's how Warren Buffet actually walked the walk, less than two weeks after he talked the talk. The Oracle of Omaha? More like The Billionaire Blowhard from Nebraska.
