Time for Warren Buffett and his Secretary to Release Their Personal Tax Returns

The political theater of the Obama Administration continues at this evening’s State of the Union Address. Debbie Bosanek, Warren Buffett’s personal secretary–you know the woman who has become the poster-child for President Obama’s attacks on the “unfairness” of the not progressive enough tax code–will be seated in the First Lady’s box this evening. Buffett has repeatedly lectured to us about a tax code in which his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.

Ms. Bosanek, who until recently had only been thrust into the public dialogue over “fairness” and redistribution by her publicity seeking and political favor hunting boss (note how his Burlington Railroad company benefits financially from the President’s decision to halt the Keystone Pipeline) has now thrust herself into the national debate.

Fair enough.

Now that she’s voluntarily participating in the public arena, I call on both Ms. Bosanek and Mr. Buffett to release their own personal tax returns for the past four years. Let’s see what their tax rates really are. This is an important political argument that will be a central theme of the Obama campaign for the rest of the year. Having made the claim on behalf of the Obama campaign, it’s time for Mr. Buffett and Ms. Bosanek to demonstrate its veracity.

I suspect we’ll find that Mr. Buffett has benefited significantly from his own lobbying of Congress. And I’m curious to see exactly how much higher Ms. Bosanek’s tax rate is than Mr. Buffett’s.

The analysis of their personal tax returns is likely to be highly educational for the entire country.

More commentary at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor of the Voices of the Tea Party e-book series, co-founder of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, and co-organizer of Election Day Tea Party 2012. His new book,Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, will be published by Broadside Books in spring, 2012. He can be reached on Twitter at @michaelpleahy .

Monday Morning Radio: Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt

I'll be talking with WWTN Radio's Ralph Bristol tomorrow morning (Monday) at 8 am cst about my American Thinker article "Barack Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt."


You can listen live and call in from anywhere in the country here.

Newt Gingrich, Champion of Hamiltonian Statism

On the Glenn Beck radio program today, Newt Gingrich once more confirmed his support for Hamiltonian industrial policies. In some instances, such as ethanol, Gingrich argued, the federal government should subsidize some industries over others. In other instances, such as the automobile industry, such subsidies should not be undertaken.

Gingrich failed to offer a convincing argument why subsidies are appropriate for some industries and companies, but not others.

When he cited the history of subsidies to manufacturers and other companies in America, the former professor of history got in to big trouble with those of us who support the three core values of the Tea Party movement: (1) Constitutionally Limited Government (2) Free Markets and (3) Fiscal Responsibility.

Gingrich pointed to two examples of “successful” industrial subsidies in our nation’s first century — Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufactures and the transconstinental railroad built during the 1860s.

He could not have found two better examples that illustrate the corrupting nature of the federal government picking winners and losers. In fact, “Professor” Gingrich seems to have either missed history’s lessons about the adverse affects of crony capitalism, or he’s emulating some big-government villains in American history.

As I point out in my new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, Alexander Hamilton was the original champion of crony capitalism. Indeed, before introducing his Report on Manufactures to the Second Congress in December, 1791, Hamilton had organized and raised capital for a private company called The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. Though he himself was not an investor, he wrote the prospectus, and persuaded his many financial speculator friends in New York City to invest in the deal. Why wouldn’t they? With the public backing of the Secretary of the Treasury, it was a sure thing. Hamilton persuaded the State Government of New Jersey to invest, as well as numerous Congressmen, a future Supreme Court Justice, and the Governor of New Jersey himself.

In his Report on Manufactures, Hamilton asked Congress to subsidize this very company, without specifically naming it. The Chairman of SEUM, a financial manipulator by the name of William Duer, soon was caught up in the first national Wall Street financial scandal, emptied all the investor funds from the company, and went to debtors prison. Hamilton got his friends at the Bank of New York (where much of the federal government’s funds were invested) to loan $10,000 to the essentially bankrupt enterprise, and it limped along for another five years before it became, at least temporarily, a shell company.

SEUM purchased land in what is now Paterson, New Jersey, and the ruins of its buildings can be seen there today. Why did the enterprise fail ? Because neither Hamilton nor any of the investors in the company (the speculators and politicians) knew anything about manufacturing.

This is a project that Gingrich points to as an example we should emulate today?

It gets worse.

You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books’ Line of Fire here.

The Price of Civilization?

Many years ago, Columbia economist Jeff Sachs did me a personal favor. We had both just graduated from Harvard, and I was moving from a dorm room in one of the residential houses down by the Charles River to a very sparse apartment in Somerville. The floors in the apartment were covered by some form of linoleum and badly in need of a rug. Another friend offered to give me a rug if I would take it out of his apartment. It was about 8 feet by 10 feet long, and one person alone couldn’t handle the job. The catch was, I had to get it that night.

I couldn’t find anyone to help me, and as I wandered through Harvard Yard that evening, I bumped into Jeff, who even at that young age had quite a reputation as an economics genius. I knew Jeff, but not well, and after chatting a moment, he told me I looked like I was in a hurry. I explained the situation, and he offered to help. I was quite surprised by his generous offer.

So we headed up to one apartment, picked up the rug, and the two of us walked about a mile with it, carrying it over our shoulders as if we were a couple of stevedores–which we obviously weren’t–to my new apartment.

You can read the rest of the post on Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Gibson Guitar and the Resurrected Blue Eagle

In April, 1934, a 49 year old Polish immigrant, Jacob Maged, who had been operating a one man tailor and cleaning shop in Jersey City, New Jersey, was jailed for three days and fined $100. His crime? He had refused to comply with the National Recovery Administration’s “code of fair competition,” which dictated that no one in the cleaning business could charge less than 40 cents for pressing a suit.

The codes had been drawn up by the larger drying and cleaning businesses, in cooperation with the bureaucrats operating under the control of Hugh Johnson, the hard drinking profane administrator of the agency authorized by Franklin Roosevelt to implement the National Industrial Recovery Act, one of the cornerstones of the First New Deal. Compliance with the codes was signfied by the placement of a placard with a Blue Eagle–the symbol of the power of the NRA–displayed in the windows of businesses that voluntarily agreed to accept the codes.

For those independent businessmen who refused to voluntarily comply with the code, it was tough luck. The law allowed the Federal Government to imprison and impose stiff fines on “ruthless competitors” like Mr. Maged who wouldn’t play ball. The uncooperative Maged insisted on charging 35 cents –a pricing policy that had kept him in business for 22 years–and Hugh Johnson and his local minions were upset. How dare this independent operator defy the authority of the Federal Government? As a reward for his defiance, Mr. Maged, who was barely making a living to begin with, was jailed for 3 days and fined $100. He only earned his freedom by meekly accepting the government’s pricing rules.

Last week, when agents of the Federal Government raided the Nashville, Tennessee plant of Gibson Guitar, the premier guitar manufacturer in the world, memories of similar tactics of intimidation designed to force independent businesses into compliance came to mind. The circumstances were significantly different, but the tactics were the same.

You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Another Billionaire Offers the Country Unsolicited Political Advice

I like Howard Schultz, the billionaire who created the Starbucks chain from scratch.

I like Starbucks stores, and will occasionally spend some of my hard earned money on the over priced coffee and baked goods sold there. It’s an indulgence, I know, but I like the community atmosphere in the stores.

I used to buy Starbucks Coffee at our local grocery store, but I’ve switched recently. I got tired of paying $10 for eleven ounces of quality coffee when about $4 of that price was simply for the brand. I’ve found another brand for $6 and, to my taste buds, it’s just as good as Starbucks.

Now Mr. Schultz has decided to offer the country two pieces of political advice.

1. He’s asking everyone to forego their Constitutional rights to free speech by boycotting donations to all Congressional and Presidential candidates until our national debt issue is properly resolved.

2. He’s asking his fellow employers to start hiring new employees, not because the company needs them, but because the country needs fewer unemployed.

This sort of business “voluntarism” was popularized by Herbert Hoover back in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its prospects for success are as limited today as it was back then.


You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.

Rachel Maddow and the Anti-Intellectual Left

I’ve been pondering for some time now the need for a Voices of the Tea Party e-book that points out the intellectual weakness of political and economic arguments advanced by the Left in the contemporary public dialogue. As someone who always tries to get the facts of history correct, regardless where they lead, I am frequently dismayed to see how truly anti-intellectual the Left is. They frequently claim to be “seekers of the truth,” but the reality is they’re “protectors of the faith.”

Now comes a challenge to Rachel Maddow, a very smart and clever propagandist employed by MSNBC, from an academic who is committed to the search for the truth. His name is Professor Steve Horwitz. He serves as a Professor and Economics Department Chair at St. Lawrence University, and he’s written extensively on topics of economic policy.

Professor Horwitz heard Rachel Maddow make a false statement on her program recently. Here, in part, is his challenge to her:


You can read the rest of this article at Broadside Books' Line of Fire here.