Free Republic

When President Obama, who is normally a great proponent of “infrastructure” projects, made his bizarre decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline project, I wondered if he might have been induced to create those thousands of American jobs if the oil could be moved by his beloved high-speed rail. As it turns out, oil is already moved from northern latitudes, such as the booming oil fields of North Dakota, down to the Gulf of Mexico by rail of the old, low-speed variety. Fortunately, as Newt Gingrich pointed out during the Monday night Republican debate in Florida, the oil is on...

'Whatever people bring to us, we're ready to haul' (BLOOMBERG) — Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit. With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department. “Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an...

Not since his minions handed out lab coats at a White House Obamacare rally has Barack Obama committed such a lame or electorate-insulting act of political theater. But it's just part of the class war he must wage if he's to get re-elected. Code word: fairness. Politico: Billionaire Warren Buffett's longtime secretary will be joining first lady Michelle Obama in her box at tonight's State of the Union, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced on Twitter. Debbie Bosanek, who has worked for Buffett for nearly two decades, has become a symbol in the White House's fight over the tax code...

Warren Buffett has written his first check to the U.S. Treasury since announcing his pledge to match Republican donations to pay down the national debt a week ago. Carol Loomis, Fortune's senior editor-at-large and long-time friend of Buffett's, reports that the Omaha investor received a letter from Congressman Scott Rigell of Virginia (pictured below). In it, Rigell details the $49,000 he had donated to Treasury in total in 2011 and 2012 and asks Buffett to match both (full letter is below). Buffett agreed (full letter below). Lest we raise your hopes that the national debt is over as an issue,...

Despite his advanced age, it appears Warren Buffett has never heard the admonition, “Practice what you preach.” And it seems that some of his apologists haven’t, either. As you may know, Buffett has long been urging the government to seize more money from the rich, with the rationale that they have an obligation to pay more. In response, many traditionalists have told him to put up or shut up: If he truly believes in what he says, there’s nothing stopping him from writing a check to Big Brother as large as his socialism-espousing mouth. And now Buffett has a response:...

Business mogul Warren Buffet is promising to match any donation Republican members make toward cutting the national deficit. And he upped the ante when it came to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saying he would match the leader's donations three-to-one. His pledge comes after McConnell said that if Buffett is feeling guilty about not paying more in taxes, he should just send in a check. "With regard to his tax rate, if he’s feeling guilty about it, I think he should send in a check," McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in September.

The Billionaires of the Left aren't interested in making money. The reason is that they're Good People, and Good People Don't Tell Lies. Warren Buffett is a Good Person who wants to pay more taxes. How do we know? 'Cause he says so, any time the media ask him. That's proof enough, isn't it? George Soros isn't interested in making more billions. Soros is a Good Convicted Insider Trader, who tried to knock off the currency of Malaysia and the UK, impoverishing millions of people. When asked about that, Gyorgyi says somebody had to do it. See? He's a Good...

Berkshire's NetJets subsidiary has been assessed $643 million in back taxes, and NetJets has now responded with a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming the assessment is "illegal."

WASHINGTON — Two dozen “patriotic millionaires” traveled to the Capitol on Wednesday to demand that Congress raise taxes on wealthy Americans. The Daily Caller attended their press conference with an iPad, which displayed the Treasury Department’s donation page, to find out if any of the “patriotic millionaires” were willing to put their money where their mouth is. Watch: (at link) Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/17/patriotic-millionaires-demand-higher-taxes-but-unwilling-to-pay-up-video/#ixzz1e7tfdymG

In the wake of the $700 billion TARP bailout, Warren Buffett apparently shaped a plan to clean up toxic assets that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner later adopted–resulting in massive profits for Buffett.That’s the latest bombshell revelation from investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s sensational new book, Throw Them All Out. According to Schweizer, after the bailout bill’s passage, Warren Buffett sat down and wrote then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a four-page private letter laying out a plan to clean up the toxic assets plaguing numerous financial institutions. Buffett proposed something he called a “public-private partnership fund.” For every $10 billion...

Energy Policy: Killing the Keystone XL pipeline may help one of the world's richest men get richer. North Dakota's booming oil fields will now grow more dependent on a railroad the president's economic guru just bought. Stop us if you see a pattern here. About the time George Soros — Hungarian billionaire and key donor to leftist groups and the Democratic Party — invested heavily in the stock of the state-run Brazilian oil company Petrobras, President Obama was curbing U.S. offshore oil production and the U.S. Export-Import Bank announced a $2 billion loan to Petrobras to finance deep-water drilling off...

Warren Buffett is on CNBC this morning... First, he sees all the Republicans going further and further to the right to out-Republican each other during the primary. It's natural, he says, though he's not sure it's good for the Republic. ...If he had to support a Republican, it would be, not surprisingly, Mitt Romney. Given that Buffett is a pro-business, mainstream Democrat this obviously makes sense. He doesn't mind his past as a PE cost-cutter, though he's not crazy about Bain Capital's history of drawing cash out of companies they stuff up with debt.

Listening to an interview of Peter Schwiezer talking to Steve Bannon (Director of Palin's Undefeated movie)...There's a whole chapter in Peter's new book exposing Warren Buffet. Supposedly he is involved in insider trading. This chapter of Schweizer's book shows how his company got the sweetheart deal to invest in Goldman Sachs in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. One member of Congress even bought Berkshire stock the day before the deal was even announced....It was a racket!

Anti-corporatism protesters across the United States are not satisfied with the econoimc situation, saying that only one percent of the country's population has the nation's wealth. Among the top one percent category are the following: Warren Buffett...................USD 39 billion (Berkshire Hathaway) Charles Koch.....................USD 25 billion (Koch Industries Inc) George Soros.....................USD 22 billion (Soros Fund Management) Sheldon Adelson................USD 21.5 billion (Las Vegas Sands Corp) Michael Bloomberg.............USD 19.5 billion (Bloomberg L.P) John Paulson......................USD 15.5 billion (Paulson & Co) Carl Icahn............................USD 13 billion (Viacom) Anne Cox Chambers.................USD 12 billion (Cox Enterprises) Ronald Perelman.......................USD 12 billion (MacAndrews & Forces Holdings Inc) Abigail Johnson.....................USD 11.7...

A plan by beleaguered Bank of America to foist trillions of dollars of funky Merrill Lynch derivatives onto its depositors is raising eyebrows on Wall Street. The rarely used move will likely save the bank millions of dollars in collateral but could put depositors’ cash behind the eight ball. The move also brought to light fissures between the nation’s top banking regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, in the wake of new regulations meant to curb the free-wheeling habits that fostered the worst crisis in a generation back in 2008. At issue is BofA’s decision to...

Poor Warren Buffett. Thanks to good accountants, last year he paid only $6,938,744 in federal income taxes on an income of $62,855,038. No one said he had to take deduction that cut his taxable income almost in half. But he did take advantage of tax deductions, and then he whined about his deed in an ope-ed column in the New York Times on August 1. Warren Buffett’s tax-me-more call to comes despite an 1843 law that allows anyone to pay extra in taxes. Just mail it in. This apparently is not convenient enough for Warren Buffett — and so House...

Technically, nothing prevents Warren Buffett and other “Patriotic Millionaires” from donating money to the federal government right now, but, as they continue to clamor for a higher tax rate for themselves and others, it’s easy to assume they don’t know that. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) have introduced legislation to ensure they do: Dubbed “The Buffett Rule Act of 2011,” the names of the bills take a mocking swipe at President Barack Obama’s own proposed “Buffet Rule,” which conversely would close tax code loopholes to ensure that Warren Buffett and those like him no longer pay...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett revealed Wednesday that he made $62,855,038 last year, paying $6,923,494 in income taxes (or about 17 percent of his $39,814,784 taxable income) and $15,300 in payroll taxes. With Buffett concerned that he does not pay enough in taxes, congressional Republicans have introduced legislation to allow Buffett — and others who believe they are under-taxed — the easy option of voluntarily donating to the U.S. Treasury on their tax forms.

BET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so. "And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old --...

CNBC: "Are you happy that the way it is being described. Is the program that the White House has presented a million dollars and over your program? " Warren Buffett: "Well, the precise program which will -- I don't know what their program will be. My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed very low. Not just high incomes. Somebody making $50 million a year playing baseball, his taxes won't change. Make $50 million a year appearing on television, his income won't change. But, if they make a lot of money and pay a very low...