Clinton’s Omaha detour

Hillary Clinton directed her campaign bus to Omaha yesterday. She had important business to transact with Warren Buffett. About 15 people paid $100,000 each to attend Buffett’s fundraiser for Clinton. Our man in Omaha — Nebraska attorney Dave Begley — was ready for Hillary when she got to town. Dave reports:

Hillary Clinton appeared in Omaha on Monday with Warren Buffett. Since this appearance was all about Buffett, I will start with him.

Warren Buffett is both a showman and an effective advocate. He tried to bait Trump into accepting his challenge to release both of their tax returns and then take questions from the American people. He noted that a tax return is different from a financial statement. Buffett suggested that Trump was afraid of what his tax returns would reveal and that is why he will not release them.

Hillary Clinton later made the same demand for Trump to release his tax returns as hers have been public for over 30 years. I would note that the real Clinton corruption is all in the donations to the Clinton Foundation and tax returns for three years were revised in November 2015.

Buffett attacked Trump for his assertion that he alone can restore American greatness. In what is probably new information for most people, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO told the crowd that after Trump’s casino company went public (symbol: DJT) investors subsequently saw a loss of 90 percent of their capital, Trump took in millions in salary and the company never had a profitable year.

On the Kahn controversy, Buffett noted that neither the Buffett nor the Trump families has had a family member serve in the military. He then recounted the famous line from the McCarthy hearings, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Nebraska and Maine split their Electoral College votes. In 2008, Obama won the Omaha area. ABC reporter Jonathan Karl recently constructed a 269 vote tie in the Electoral College. Buffett challenged the crowd to get 10 people to the polls in November who would otherwise not vote or would have a problem in getting to the polls. He has already made arrangements to do so. Buffett set the goal that Nebraska’s Second District have the highest percentage turnout in America. In her speech Hillary said that if the goal was met she would return to Omaha to dance in the streets with Warren.

The theme of Madam Hillary’s speech was building an economy that works for everyone. She started with banalities about working together. She then touted President Obama’s record. The only thing she could come up with was factoids asserting 15 million new jobs and 20 million people with new Obamacare coverage. No other statistics were cited. She also blamed Bush in a backhanded way.

One of Clinton’s weaknesses is the Obama economic record. By any metric, the Obama record on the economy has been an objective failure. Last week we saw 1.2 percent GDP growth. Nearly 70 percent of the public thinks America is on the wrong track. Our economic recovery is the weakest it has been since World War II. While the unemployment rate has been lowered, workforce participation is abysmal.

The real reason Hillary came to Omaha was to collect money from Buffett and friends. During the course of her speech, Mrs. Clinton rightly stated that our tax code is full of loopholes and special benefits. Just prior to that correct observation she said in her first hundred days she would pass an infrastructure bill including a new electric grid so that clean and renewable resources can benefit and be distributed. This is the Buffett and Elon Musk payoff.

At this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Buffett stated that his Iowa power company is spending $3.6 billion on wind energy and the spending is almost entirely funded from the federal tax credit. (See my account here.) That’s free money folks. Free is good.

This is the rigged system of crony capitalism of which Donald Trump speaks. Taxpayers will be spending billions to solve a global warming problem that doesn’t exist to benefit Hillary’s friends. (And we will see much higher power prices, as in Australia and Europe.) Whatever Buffett and friends contribute to Hillary’s election, it will be their best return on investment ever.

Her free college promise drew big cheers but there were bigger cheers when she said that “Wall Street will start paying their fair share.” I guess Goldman Sachs didn’t get good value for its money.

The event was held at Omaha North high school. It is located in the historical heart of the black population of Omaha, but I doubt that even five percent of the crowd was black.

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