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- Sen. Bernie Sanders invoked Warren Buffett’s famous quote about the wealthy winning the class war in a tweet on Saturday.
- “Warren Buffett was right,” the progressive lawmaker said. “There is class warfare in America and his side is winning.”
- “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,” Buffett famously said in a 2006 interview.
- Sanders on Saturday highlighted the disconnect between tens of millions of Americans facing eviction due to the pandemic, and billionaires adding to their fortunes in recent weeks.
- “I’m very much in sympathy with the fact that Senator Sanders believes that a lot of people are getting left behind and through no fault of their own,” Buffett said in a CNBC interview in February.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Warren Buffett famously told The New York Times in 2006 that the wealthiest Americans were only growing richer and more powerful despite mounting resentment towards them.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,” the billionaire investor said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders referenced the Berkshire Hathaway CEO’s comment in a tweet on Saturday.
“Warren Buffett was right,” he said. “There is class warfare in America and his side is winning.”
“While 40 million Americans face eviction, 10 billionaires increased their wealth by $368 billion since March,” Sanders continued.
“We need to tax the rich and create an economy that works for all of us, not the 1%.”
The progressive lawmaker was likely referencing an Americans for Tax Fairness report that found the nation’s 600-plus billionaires added more than $700 billion to their combined fortunes between March 18 and July 16.
However, it’s worth noting that the benchmark S&P 500 stock index had already slumped almost 30% from its mid-February peak by March 18. The decline slashed the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and other CEOs whose fortunes are largely tied to the value of their companies.
Their fortunes rebounded when the stock market swung back up, meaning recovered wealth made up a significant chunk of the wealth gains outlined in the report.
Buffett and Sanders go way back
Sanders has tweeted about Buffett and taxes before. The investor’s revelation that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary spurred Sanders to highlight the absurdity and unfairness of that fact in 2011, 2012, and 2016.
Meanwhile, Buffett expressed partial support for Sanders’ policy agenda in a CNBC interview in February.
“I’m very much in sympathy with the fact that Senator Sanders believes that a lot of people are getting left behind and through no fault of their own,” he said. “There’s all kinds of aspects of capitalism that need, in some ways, to be regulated.”
However, he added, “I don’t think we should kill the capitalist system in the process.”
Buffett also called for higher taxes on the 1% and a more generous earned income tax credit to help close the wealth gap in a Yahoo Finance interview in March.
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