SOURCE:
WASHINGTON POSTURL:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/02/why-the-worlds-third-richest-man-is-attacking-donald-trump/By Ana Swanson
Billionaire Warren Buffett has spent a lifetime building a financial empire, spawning reams of business advice books and folksy investing mantras. In the twilight of his career, he is also embracing a new role: political street-fighter.
At a rally in Omaha on Monday, the business icon praised Hillary Clinton for her policies and condemned Donald Trump for refusing to release his tax returns. Buffett invoked Trump's record of bankruptcies and the failure of his only public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1995. “In 1995, when he offered this company, if a monkey had thrown a dart at the stock page, the monkey would have made on average 150 percent,” Buffet said. “But the people that believed in him, that listened to his siren song, came away losing well over 90 cents on the dollar.”
Buffett, who turns 86 later this month, has long-supported left-leaning causes. But over the past decade-and-a-half, he has fought more loudly for Democrats against Republican proposals. His voice has been especially resonant given that corporate America has long been more friendly with Republicans. But the Oracle of Omaha has thrown money behind a number of liberal candidates and causes, from the campaigns of John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to issues like abortion rights and environmental protection.
Buffet's most high-profile impact on policy may have been lending his name to an Obama administration proposal to raise the minimum tax rate so that people who make more than $1 million would pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes, which became known as “the Buffett rule." Buffett had famously commented that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, due to loopholes that allow income from investments to be taxed at a much lower rate than other income.
Gene Sperling, who advised Obama at the time as the National Economic Council director and currently advises Clinton's campaign, had given the billionaire a call to see if he would allow the administration to brand the proposal with his name. "If all the diseases are taken, I'll take a tax rule," Buffett quipped.
“He knew he’d be putting himself in the firing line by letting his name be used for that," Sperling recalled. The use of Buffett's name increased the prominence of the proposal, but it also intensified the personal attacks and scrutiny that Buffett received, Sperling said. "So it was not a tiny thing."
Trump reacted strongly on Tuesday to Buffett's remarks in Omaha, telling Fox Business Network, "I don’t care much about Warren Buffett." He added, "He's been a Hillary fan for a long time and I think that's fine. Hillary is a disaster."
Buffett's support for left-leaning causes hasn't always been unbridled. He has been a strong advocate for fiscal discipline, for example cautioning against overspending on Social Security. He has also largely refrained from supporting left-leaning super PACs, whose influenced he opposed in principle. (There's a glaring exception: He donated to a pro-Clinton super PAC in 2014, later saying he didn't realize it was a super PAC.)
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