The Buffett Rule Obama Doesn’t Want to Talk About
One of the headline elements – if not one of the largest elements – of the President’s deficit reduction plan is the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which will have the effect of raising taxes on American job creators. The President has repeatedly invoked Mr. Buffett’s belief that taxes should rise for the wealthiest Americans – many of whom are small business owners – as a matter of “fairness.”
But it’s worth recalling that in March 2010, Mr. Buffett conducted an interview for CNBC where – asked about the health legislation that was then in the process of being rammed through Congress – he said the bill “really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much” and that “I don’t believe in insuring more people until you attack the cost aspect of this.”
If the President wishes to invoke Warren Buffett on tax policy, why doesn’t he first follow Buffett’s advice on health care policy – and indicate that Obamacare’s coverage expansions will NOT start until the law is proven to have lowered health care spending levels? After all, if the President is so confident the 2,700-page overhaul will be effective in lowering premiums by $2,500 per family as promised, why doesn’t he believe this condition will be easily met? Conversely, if the President does NOT believe the law will be effective in slowing the growth of health spending, and will instead result in skyrocketing costs to federal taxpayers, what’s the point of even submitting a “deficit reduction” plan, seeing as how new spending on Obamacare will quickly overwhelm any savings from the President’s proposed tax increases?
In reporting on the “Buffett Rule” Sunday, the New York Times quoted Rep. Chris Van Hollen as criticizing Republicans for “cherry-pick[ing] the [deficit reduction] pieces they like and leav[ing] behind the ones they don’t.” Given the events of the past week, some would argue that – in outsourcing Democrats’ tax policy to Mr. Buffett, while ignoring Buffett’s advice on health care policy – President Obama has engaged in much the same cherry-picking, in an attempt to preserve his unpopular, and costly, health care law.