RUSH: Let’s move on to Buffett’s secretary. You know, I made a call yesterday: Let’s see her tax returns. There a bunch of people… A guy at Forbes based on her tax rate of 35-plus percent, a lot of people have been trying to figure out, “Well, what does she earn?” Let me ask you a question: When you heard this whole story, Warren Buffett’s secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does, what do you think when you hear a secretary income? What do you think? You think $35,000, $60,000? What do you think? Something in there, in that range? When you hear that rich old guy Warren Buffett paying lower taxes than his poor bedraggled victimized secretary, you think here he is this super multibillionaire and somebody making $35,000 or $50,000 a year, “how unfair,” right?
She’s making, according to the best estimates, between $200,000 and $500,000 a year. There’s no way you can get to a 35% tax rate, folks, unless you’re an absolute idiot at doing your taxes; have a fraudulent, fraud accountant; or are genuinely stupid. The 35% is the top rate, and you can’t get there at $60,000 a year income. You just can’t do it. So they’ve been trying to figure out: How much capital gains income does she have? We’ve found out she has two homes. She’s got a home in Nebraska, in Bellevue.
She just bought a place in Arizona, a winter place. And she’s up there sitting next to Moochelle Obama, at the State of the Union, the Class Warfare Rally, as though she’s a big victim! That was such a contemptible thing to do because that traditionally is where you put heroes. Buffett, Buffett is still out there saying, “I think it’s outrageous! I think it’s outrageous that I’m paying a lower tax rate than she is.” Well, then fix it, for crying out. Pay her more! For crying out loud, Warren Buffett portraying himself as a victim and as powerless? “I think it’s ridiculous, tax rate of 15% and my secretary 35%, people need to pay more taxes.” Really, that’s the solution?
You have a contained situation, you got Warren Buffett paying 15%. Actually 50 because there’s a 35% corporate tax rate on top of that that happens first before the capital gains rate, but anyway. So you have this dynamic duo. You got Warren Buffett and his secretary and whatever the dynamic there is, the end result is that everybody needs to be paying higher tax. Somebody tell me how that works. (imitating Buffett) “My secretary, 35.6% tax rate, effective tax rate, 17%, terribly unfair, not right.” As though he’s sitting around a total victim, can’t do anything about this. Here’s what she said. They asked her on Good Morning America what it was like the past 24 hours.
SECRETARY: It’s been magical. I’m still taking it all in. I can’t believe it happened. It was like a dream come true.
RUSH: Really? If I’d been singled out as somebody victimized by America, my boss is a creep, and I’m getting screwed this way and they bring me up to the House and I sit there, it’s an honor? And here’s Buffett, I guess he’s on the same show, he was asked, “Mr. Buffett, do you think this will be a defining issue at this year’s election?”
CALLER: I think it should be a defining issue. Debbie works just as hard as I do, and she pays twice the rate I pay. I think that’s outrageous.
RUSH: This is such a phony piece of crap.
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RUSH: You know, the Warren Buffett sound bite I just played, this is such phoniness, and it’s so misleading. He says, “I think it should be a defining issue, absolutely, Debbie works just as hard as I do, she pays twice the rate I pay. It’s outrageous.” Who knew Warren Buffett was running a sweatshop. His secretary works as hard as he does and she doesn’t make one-tenth of 1%. Look at the gap between the CEO and the worker in Warren Buffett’s shop. I thought this only happened at Big Oil and Big Retail and Big Drug. But now we find it’s happening at Big Berkshire. Warren Buffett, $50 billion, his secretary taxed at 35%, a pauper. And Warren Buffett thinks it’s outrageous? He’s running a sweatshop and somehow the government gets the blame here?
Poor old Rick Lazio, remember him? He was at a debate with Hillary Clinton. He had some paper in his hand, decided to leave his podium. He walks over, “Here, sign this pledge on campaign finance reform.” You woulda thought he was gonna rape her, and nobody thought that. You would have thought that he was out there to mall her, to attack. This guy was taken out, his political career was over. Obama gets off Air Force One, charges up to Jan Brewer, female governor, Arizona, gets in her face. Who the hell do you think you are? Do you know who I am? To hell with you, what are you saying about me? She points a finger back at him, she says that she didn’t get to finish what she was saying ’cause he walks off, and she’s the bad guy. My, how our culture has changed.
Warren Buffett gets to totally take advantage of his secretary. He coulda paid her a little extra but, no, he gets Obama to have her sit up in there in the gallery. What’s that worth, a dime? Sweatshop, Berkshire Hathaway. Hah. Well, that’s how you can interpret this. Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is willingly participating in a story of how his secretary being mistreated by the government. Actually, by the Republicans cause they are really raping the middle class with these high tax rates that are giving Warren Buffett a pass. That’s true.
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RUSH: This afternoon in Vegas at UPS Las Vegas south, Barack Obama talking about the economy and developing American energy.
OBAMA: A quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle class households. Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I know because she was at the State of the Union. She told me. Now, that’s not fair.
RUSH: My goodness, now he’s dragging her around. She just happened to show up. Did you know that? Warren Buffett’s secretary, who works in the Buffett sweatshop at Berkshire Hathaway, got out, happened to find her way to the House chamber. She’s up there sitting next to the first lady and Obama said, “Well, my, look who’s here,” and he talked to her, and she told him that she’s paying twice the tax rate as her sweatshop boss, except Warren Buffett’s not the problem. America is the problem. Now, we gotta get Bill Gates in the rotation. Here’s Obama again.
OBAMA: When Americans talk about folks like me paying their fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. Just yesterday Bill Gates said he agrees with me that most — that Americans who can afford it should pay their fair share. I promise you, Bill Gates does not envy the rich. (laughter) He doesn’t envy wealthy people. This has nothing to do with envy. It has everything to do with math.
RUSH: Let me tell you what it is. I made this point yesterday, and this is exactly what it is. Every filthy rich person — the vast majority of them (can’t say “every” in all instances, but vast majority of the filthy rich) — have figured it out. In public you say and act liberal. Why? It’s your insurance policy. You’re filthy rich. You have $40 billion. You run around and say you’re not paying enough and nobody is, either, and the peasants with the pitchforks will leave you alone — you think — until they get fed up and come for the money. It worked for the Kennedys. It’s workin’ for Bill Gates. It’s workin’ for Buffett. This is why they do it!
They’re protecting themselves. This is how they hold onto their own money, folks. This is how they turn hatred and resentment for the rich into love and respect for themselves. They align themselves with Democrats. They align themselves with the social welfare net. They constantly talk about the poor and the disadvantaged, how the rich aren’t paying enough. How could the peasants disagree? How could the peasants get mad at them? That leaves only the Republicans who are the filthy rich who want to hoard it all and share it all. And unlike Buffett, who didn’t get rich by stealing from the poor, that’s exactly how the Republicans do it!
Nothing about envy? These guys, Gates and Buffett, they’re using Obama as much as he’s using them. This is how they end up being left alone. This is how they have an insurance policy so that the peasants with pitchforks are not following them around everywhere asking them for money or extorting money or whatever. Because the peasants with pitchforks end up thinking that Buffett and Gates are on their side and are working very hard to make sure that the rich “pay more,” but not that the poor “get more.” It’s such a scam, it’s a game, or what have you. But this business of Buffett’s secretary as a victim? They’re really making this look like Warren Buffett is a guy with a sweatshop!
In five minutes, Warren Buffett could fix his secretary’s situation. If it even needs to be fixed. Now, I want to go back to something we had on this program August 5th of last year. It was a story in the UK Daily Mail. This story did not make it into the American media. It was a report from the Internal Revenue Service that the US media did not report. I’m reading from my transcript of this show August 5th of last year. And in the Internal Revenue Service report, the rich are defined this way. You’ll remember this when I give you the numbers, if you were listening that day. There are 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more, what was the combined total income earned of all those 8,274 people in 2009?”
At the time I asked Snerdley and Dawn and Brian take a wild guess, and Brian came within $10 million. I’ll ask you again. Since we’re talking about people not paying their fair share, and Warren Buffett and Bill Gates out there joining this scam — which is all, in their case, oriented toward protected themselves. These guys both loooove fawning media coverage. They thrive on it. Both these guys strive for and love to be either number one or number two in the Forbes richest list. I remember when I was growing up — and maybe this was true with you. When I was growing up, you did not talk about how much money you earned. It was the epitome of being boorish.
It was a sign of having no class. If you had a lot of money, you didn’t talk about your money. You didn’t laud it over anybody. You didn’t. You just didn’t talk about it. It was not considered good manners. I know that sounds quaint. Now, just the exact opposite — and don’t think these guys are trying to hide it. They’re jockeying. They want to be number one or number two. They have fun switching back and forth. They have people working Forbes to get on these lists and so forth. Don’t doubt me on this. I’m just telling you: They want and they crave fawning media coverage. Most people do. They’re not unique in that regard. The people that don’t care about how they appear in the media, those are the people that are unique.
Most people just live and die by the media. People in the public eye, they sweat it out. They have PR agents and firms trying to get good coverage and so forth. Hollywood people, financial, you name it. And these guys are no different. And one of the ways you avoid being tagged as a rich, heartless, mean-spirited Republican is to simply be a liberal and tell everybody how much money you’ve got. You run around say, “I don’t think we’re paying enough taxes. I’m gonna give all of my money to charity! I want to send up this foundation.” Then you are gold. You’re gold and you’re protected. You’re safe. You become a protected member of the elite wealthy Democrat Party class, and they’ll go out of their way to protect you.
Do a couple inside deals with the president, whatever, and you’re in like Flynn, and you’re guaranteed good coverage. Why, even some lug head like Schwarzenegger might seek your advice when he runs for governor. And then in the midst of all that we hear a story about how your secretary is mistreated. Well, here’s the answer. The combined income of the 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million is $240 billion. It’s $240 billion. That’s the combined income of everybody in this country who earns more than ten million a year: $240 billion. How long could you run the government on that? Eighteen days! Well, 24 days, but 25% of the money already goes to the federal government for federal income taxes, so 18 days. You could run the government for 18 days on the combined income of the 8,274 people who make incomes over $10 million a year, which means the answer to our problem is not raising their taxes, folks.