RUSH: Warren Buffett. Get this. Warren Buffett. You know he’s a rich guy, and Gates and Buffett and all these rich guys, they are predictably, uniformly, routinely anti-tax cuts. And you know why? They don’t pay income taxes. Gates has made his money. Buffett continues to make his. Buffett’s money is all capital gains. So these guys do not have what is called ordinary income. So they can — any number of ways — freely say that they don’t support tax cuts, that they don’t need them. “Tax cuts for the rich are horrible; it’s unfair, blah, blah.” Because it’s not anything that impacts them.
They don’t pay income taxes. The real wealthy do not. The real wealthy don’t get real wealthy because somebody paid them an exorbitant salary. That’s not how real wealth happens. I’m talking real wealth. You can be pretty good. You can be upper-middle class. If you’re an athlete, people pay you a lot of money. When you get to Gates, you know, the billionaire level and multi-multi-multimillionaire, we’re not talking about salary; we’re not talking about wages. So those people don’t pay income tax. They might have a little income to throw in there, but, I mean, the majority of their wealth and taxable income is not ordinary earned income.
The reason these rich guys are always out promoting no tax cuts is because it’s the best insurance they can get against the barbarians storming their gates and trying to steal their money. I mean, if you’re Gates, if you’re Buffett, the super-rich people, it’s very, very smart to be against tax cuts. Very, very smart. “I don’t need it!” It’s a very, very smart to say. “It’s unfair that I should be getting a tax break like this.” It builds a bridge of connectivity to the little guy and the little gal. The little guy and little gal thinks Buffett’s on his side, thinks Gates on his side.
There’s no reason to get mad at Gates and want to take his money! No reason to pie-in-the-face Gates like they just pied-in-the-face the CEO of Qantas airlines. Did you see that? But Buffett has come out and said, “Taxes are not a problem. Taxes are not the problem. We don’t need a tax cut.” He said, “Taxes are not problem. Taxes are not why business is choking. Taxes are not why business is having problems. It is health care that is the biggest problem — the unknowable expenses, the idea that the expenses are gonna continue to grow, the inability to pay for it and factor the growth and come up with business plans. It is health care.”
I said, “Whoa, w-w-what?” He has his annual meeting of shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway and he has his annual meeting with other rich guys to come in and listen to St. Warren pontificate, and he told a group of people this. I think it was yesterday. It might have been over the weekend. And I’m say (stammering), “What? W-w-w-w-wait! W-w-w-we’re in the midst of here of trying to get of Obamacare repealed, and basically Buffett comes along and says it’s a great thing today?” All kinds of things are happening out there while you’re focused at the Drive-By Media.
They can’t let go of Sally Yates. They can’t let go of that narrative that Trump’s a fraud and illegitimate and unjust. There’s all kinds of stuff happening out there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I only gave you half of the Warren Buffett story to tease you, my friends, because here’s the entire story. NPR reported, “‘Oracle Of Omaha’: Republican Health Care Bill ‘A Huge Tax Cut For Guys Like Me’.” From a Reuters story: “Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett on Saturday fumed that health-care costs are eating away at the U.S. economy like a ‘tapeworm,’ and said the Republican approach to overhaul the Affordable Care Act is a tax cut for the rich.”
Now, lest you not know, Warren Buffett’s a huge liberal, and many people who don’t know that are shocked because they associate Warren Buffett with uber-capitalism, and they figure, “An uber-capitalist? How can a guy who’s made his money the way he has be a liberal?” It’s a studied calculation. One of the smartest things that rich people… Look at the Kennedy family, folks. The Kennedy family, as led by the patriarch, Joseph Kennnedy, were uber, uber, uber-capitalists.
They also wanted to get into politics, and they knew that there are gazillions more middle class and poor people than there are rich people. So old Joe quickly figured out that he had to find a way to excuse his family’s wealth and his sons’ wealth by inheritance, and the way he did it was to point the Kennedy family toward “social justice” — toward the disadvantaged, the poor, the hungry, the thirsty — using other people’s money, not the Kennedy money.
It’s never their own money. They’re always petitioning the government to raise taxes or so that the money can be redistributed. Not their money. Oh, no! Good liberals never use their own money. They use yours and the money of your fellow taxpayers as they advocate for redistribution. It buys them a giant moat around their wealth. It protects them, because the Democrat Party is out practicing class envy and class warfare as a daily application, and they’re creating hatred for the rich.
So the rich need some insurance, and so they become liberals publicly, which has the effect of building a giant wall or a giant moat around them. Liberals don’t want to attack ’em; Democrat voters love them because they think they’re for the poor and the little guy. It’s all a show. And that’s what Buffett’s doing here with health care as well. “Tax cut for the rich? It’s insane!”