The State at the End of the Universe
June 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The current round of class warfare taking place in this country can hardly be called that because it is taking place within a single class. This is no great conflict between the construct of a 1 and 99 percent, this is a civil war taking place within the 1 percent. The very name of the “Buffett Rule” makes that all too obvious. When your class warfare bid relies on 1-percenters like Warren Buffett and Elizabeth Warren, then what you have isn’t a class war, it’s an internal conflict among some of the wealthiest Americans over whether the future lies with an all-encompassing state or a looser libertarian system.
Buffett’s position as the champion of the government class isn’t as irrational as it might seem. For the average taxpayer, the tax code is a vacuum cleaner, but, for Buffett, it’s an investment. The more money people pay in, the more money the government has available to salvage troubled banks that he can swoop in on at a hefty profit. The average taxpayer loses money to the government, but Buffett gets back money from the government.
John Malcolm 