Politically connected billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been unwavering in his support for millionaire presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but this weekend Buffett pledged to go to greater lengths to get his fellow 1-percenter elected.
As the Omaha World Herald reported over the weekend, “The Democratic presidential front-runner will be stumping in Omaha on Dec. 16, with the help of famed Omaha investor Warren Buffett.”
This is no surprise. Eight years ago, Buffett held fundraisers for Barack Obama while Obama was supporting the bailout on which Buffett had bet his investments in Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
This time around Buffett has already endorsed Hillary, and given big to her campaign through many avenues. Between his gift to the DNC, to Hillary’s campaign, and to her SuperPAC, he’s given more than $60,000 to elect her president.
We ought to assume that this is because the two agree on policy — such as higher taxes, higher minimum wage, more government spending, subsidized birth control, and abortion on demand. But it’s always worth noting when politicians support policies that enrich their powerful large donors, and that’s true in the case of Hillary and Buffett.
Clinton endorses subsidies for green energy, and Buffett is positioned to profit from such subsidies. Clinton opposes the Keystone pipeline, which could make Buffett’s railway more profitable. Hillary supported the Wall Street bailout, which directly benefited Buffett. Hillary is on board with Buffett in supporting the death tax, which has meant much profit for Buffett — he owns part of a life insurance company, and he’s bought profitable businesses whose owners were forced by to sell because of the death tax. Buffett is invested in ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland, and Clinton supports federal ethanol mandates.
Clinton and Buffett: It’s a good match.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.