Billionaires and Stealth Politics Page 10
will be less than the average of their receptionists.”13 Similarly, in a July 7, 2011, conversation with CNBC, Buffett complained, “My cleaning lady is
being charged a payroll tax. Her payroll tax, counting the portion her employer pays, is higher than my capital gains tax. . . . I mean, I am treated like I am the bald eagle or something— that I have to be protected at all costs.”14
In more recent years, Buffett has called specifically for a minimum tax
rate of 30 to 35 percent for the wealthy. On November 14, 2011, Buffett
told CNBC, “You change the Social Security rule somewhat and millions
of people will feel it, they’ll really feel it. You change the Medicare rules and millions of people will feel it. You get a minimum tax of 30 or 35 percent on incomes of a million or ten million or over, the truth is, those
people won’t even feel it. But at least the American people, as a whole,
will feel somehow that the ultrarich have been asked to participate to a
small degree in this overall sacrifice that we’re all going to be asked to participate in.”15
Taken together, these and similar statements point toward what has
come to be known as the “Buffett rule,” defined in a National Economic
Council report to be “the basic principle that no household making over
$1 million annually should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes
than middle- class families pay.”16 While this precise formulation was not offered by Buffett himself, it serves as a useful summary of the views he has often expressed about taxation and economic inequality. The fact that this attention- catching idea came to have Buffett’s name attached to it
in a high- profile official report illustrates Buffett’s distinctive role as perhaps the most prominent advocate in contemporary American political
discourse for increased personal income tax rates on the wealthy.
Buffett has also made a public case for higher corporate tax rates and
capital gains rates. One reason he has advanced for this view is his argument that it is a “myth” that American companies are paying 35 percent
corporate income tax rates.17 In the 2003 Berkshire Hathaway report,
Buffett wrote, “If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is
clearly winning. Today, many large corporations . . . pay nothing close to the stated federal tax rate of 35 percent. . . . We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future— it will mean we are prospering— but we also hope
that the rest of Corporate America antes up along with us.”18
Buffett is likewise an outspoken advocate of the estate tax. He has ar-
gued: “Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality
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of opportunity has been on the decline. . . . A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy. . . . In a country that prides itself on equality of opportunity, it’s becoming anything but that as the gap between the super- rich and the
middle class is widening.”19
While Buffett has argued extensively in favor of taxation— in the con-
text of a political culture in which few visible actors make similar arguments— he does not indiscriminately favor increasing government rev-
enue. Rather— as evidenced by several of the quotes above— Buffett’s
interest in increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy is motivated in part by concerns about economic efficiency and in part by concerns
about inequality. In connection with inequality, he has criticized the Social Security payroll tax for disproportionately falling on lower- and middle-income workers, and he supports raising the cap on income subject to it
so that those with high incomes pay more.20
All these statements— including statements from cable news programs
and corporate shareholder reports not located by our original searches—
fit comfortably with the subset of Buffett’s statements that were detected and recorded through our systematic web search procedure. Our closer
examination of the case did reveal two domains of public expression in
which Buffett’s statements had not always been captured by that proce-
dure: cable news interviews and Berkshire Hathaway annual statements.
Yet these omissions are not particularly troubling. Some statements made
in those venues were in fact found in the systematic news searches. Fur-
thermore, what Buffett said in the statements we missed was highly consistent with what he said in the statements found earlier. Thus we somewhat
underestimated the already high frequency with which Buffett spoke out, but we did not miss any important substantive positions that he took. All in all, the evidence from the Buffett case study fits with the hypothesis that there was no important, systematic measurement error in our analysis of
public statements.
Turning to political action, there is evidence that Buffett has been actively engaged in funding politics— although less so than some other billionaires, and with a distinct avoidance of dark money or other low- visibility strategies. Buffett has hosted fund- raisers for Democratic candidates, both during and after the period of our data collection (including for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election cycle). Although he has made direct contributions to numerous candidates— almost entirely Democrats— his political spending is relatively modest for a billionaire. No available source, for example, shows Buffett as having written a six- figure political check.
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Indeed, Buffett has said publicly that he will not write large checks
to candidates or their super PACs because he does not “believe that the
elections should be decided by the super- rich.”21 Furthermore, Buffett
has expressed public opposition to super PACs and unlimited campaign
spending. The available evidence suggests that he has generally followed
these principles in his own behavior. The one time he is known to have
donated to a super PAC, he claims to have done so in ignorance.22 There
is no evidence from investigative reporters or others of Buffett making
non- FEC- reported dark- money contributions.
Buffett fits the stealth politics theory well. His expressed policy preferences on taxes and Social Security align well with the views of the gen-
eral public, and he speaks out about politics much more frequently than
the average billionaire. This fits the theory because we expect billionaires with positions similar to those of the general public to feel little reluctance about speech. Buffett’s outspokenness is also consistent with the theory’s predictions regarding inherited wealth (which is predicted to be associated with less speech), since Buffett’s fortune is mostly self- made.
Furthermore, while many of the firms that Buffett indirectly owns are
consumer facing, there is sharp branding separation between Berkshire
Hathaway and the (often long- established) businesses in which it invests.
It seems unlikely that most Americans realize they are supporting Buffett when they purchase a soda, car insurance, or an airplane ticket. Hence,
Buffett may face less pressure from the public not to speak politically
than most consumer- facing billionaires do. That said, Buffett’s companies have occasionally faced politically motivated boycott efforts. The most
successful was a 2002– 2003 boycott organized by Life Decisions Inter-
national and other members of the pro- life movement. This boycott was
motivated by Buffett Foundation donations to Planned Parenthood that
were funded through a Berkshire Hathaway charitable- contributions pro-
gram. In res
ponse, Life Decisions International encouraged a boycott of
The Pampered Chef, a recently- acquired Berkshire Hathaway company.23
Notably, this boycott targeted only one readily- identifiable brand. Other efforts at boycotting Buffett have been hampered by the difficulty of pars-ing out enterprises partly or substantially owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
For example, in a 2016 online conversation reacting angrily to Buffett’s
public stance on prices for home- generated solar electricity in Nevada,
a commenter named Philip Andrew wrote, “This is evil! Shame on War-
ren Buffett. Where’s a list of all his companies so that we can #boycott
#warrenbuffett.”24 No commenter provided such a list, and the outraged
commentary moved away from the idea of a boycott.
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Buffett’s willingness to speak out on politics fits well with the conten-
tion of the stealth politics theory that the very richest billionaires tend to hold relatively pro- redistribution views and (for that reason) are more
likely both to speak out and to take relatively egalitarian stands than
those further down the list of wealthiest Americans.
John Menard Jr.
While Warren Buffett is an iconic American billionaire and has been the
subject of innumerable articles and several books, much less has been
written about the life of John Menard Jr. Midwestern readers may well
have shopped at Menards, the chain of stores that Menard founded and
owns, but it is likely that even they know little or nothing about the man himself.
This relative obscurity notwithstanding, in the autumn of 2013 (when
we began our study) John Menard Jr. was #57 among the wealthiest Amer-
icans, with a net worth of $7,500,000,000.25 By fall 2016, he had risen to #46
and had a net worth of $9,400,000,000.26 Menard’s wealth has flowed from
a business that he built from scratch. He is the founder, president, and
CEO of Menards, a retail home- improvement store chain that operates at
nearly 300 locations spread across twelve states in the Midwest and Great Plains. Menards ranks a distant third in size among home- improvement
firms nationally (after Home Depot and Lowe’s), but John Menard Jr. is
much richer than the founders of those bigger chains because Menard
kept his firm private and retained ownership and control firmly in his own hands.27
Menard was born in 1940, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His father was a
math professor, and his mother taught in a Catholic grade school. They left these jobs during Menard’s adolescence to become large- scale dairy farmers. The Menards chain is an outgrowth of John Jr.’s experience working
as a contractor to pay his way through college. He learned that he could
make a great deal of money by selling building supplies at retail prices on Sundays, when lumberyards were closed. Based on that insight, Menard
founded his first store and gradually grew the business to the point where it made him one of the wealthiest people in America.28
While the media have not reported on Menard as frequently as many
other billionaires— and our data indicate that he has generally been silent about politics— there has been some press coverage of scandals related to
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his personal life. An as- yet- unresolved lawsuit alleged that Menard threatened economic consequences on the wife of his business partner if she did not engage in sexual relations with Menard and his wife. Another lawsuit
that is apparently still in litigation alleged that Menard fired attorney Lisa Trudeau to punish the abovementioned business partner and in retaliation
for Trudeau’s rejection of Menard’s sexual advances. Beyond their pruri-
ent details, these lawsuits suggested that Menard may have forced associ-
ates out of business deals in retaliation for personal conflicts.29
We selected Menard randomly from among our billionaires who had ex-
tremely low scores on the speech variable— that is, from among those who
our data indicated did not speak publicly about taxes or Social Security
at all. Our main job in reexamining his case was to look harder and ferret out anything he actually said that we had missed. When we looked harder
we did not find any omitted statements at all— a reassuring sign of absence of measurement error. As it turned out, however, our new searches did turn up some interesting new evidence about Menard’s political actions.
Despite his silence about political issues, Menard has been highly ac-
tive politically in a variety of ways— including traditional political fundraising, but also going well beyond that. Our initial web search located
news reports that revealed $1,500,000 worth of undisclosed, dark- money
contributions Menard made between 2011 and 2012 to Scott Walker, dur-
ing Walker’s successful Republican gubernatorial campaign in Wiscon-
sin. Those contributions were funneled through the Wisconsin Club for
Growth, an outside group that spent large sums on Walker’s behalf during
the subsequent recall election, in which opponents tried to oust Walker.
Menard’s contributions to Wisconsin Club for Growth became known
only as a result of a legal investigation into whether the group had illegally coordinated with the Walker campaign.30
In addition to his donations to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, Me-
nard has also given substantially to help fund the Koch brothers’ politi-
cal en deavors. In 2011, Mother Jones magazine published a transcript of a leaked recording from a Koch brothers’ donor conference in June of that
year. In one speech, Charles Koch read a list of donors who had given a
million dollars or more, and Menard was included on the list.31 We cannot tell exactly how big Menard’s donations were or what they aimed at, since the recorded speech offered no elaboration. However, it appears that
most of Menard’s donations to the Wisconsin Club for Growth came after
June 2011, suggesting that his inclusion on the Koch brothers’ list reflects other unknown spending in promotion of right- wing libertarian ideals.
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Although the Walker- related Wisconsin Club for Growth donation
is Menard’s only dark- money contribution about which any meaningful
details are known, the size of that contribution, as well as the suggestive evidence from the Koch seminar, support an inference that this particular foray into secret political money may not have been unusual for him.
Furthermore, Menard’s political activities have not been limited to semi-
secret contributions. Menard has also made numerous legally disclosed
contributions to candidates and parties— almost all of which went to
Republicans.32
Beyond giving money to political candidates and groups, Menard has
also shaped policies within his own business that have significant political consequences. Managers of Menards home- improvement stores used to
be required to sign an employment contract that included a clause cut-
ting their salary by a punishing 60 percent if their branch of the store ever unionized.33 While this clause was ruled illegal and has been discontinued by Menards, the National Labor Relations Board has fined the company
for other anti- union policies. For example, Menards was found to have instituted a policy banning merit pay increases to employees who engage in
union activity.34
These anti- union actions no doubt partly represent economically self-
interested behavior by Menard and his co
mpany, since labor unions that
conduct pay negotiations between employees and a company tend to
raise wages and thereby increase labor costs. But such company policies
also have broader political consequences. Labor unions have historically
been a major voice for working- and middle- class citizens in American
politics.35 So restraining union activity not only forestalls potential cost increases to the Menards home- improvement stores; it also closes off an
important avenue of political participation and representation to employ-
ees of the company.
Menard has not confined his politicized business policies to simply
closing off modes of political engagement for his employees. He has also
taken the unusual step of providing and incentivizing extensive ideological training for his employees as part of their careers. Menards offers employees access to a program called “in- home training,” which consists of internet coursework. The curriculum includes the expected sorts of vocational
materials related to career advancement within the company but also ex-
tensive discussions of American politics and history from a conservative
ideological position. For example, in a training unit on “American Job
Security,” employees read that “A government dedicated to individual
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liberties is one that understands that private property is to be protected, not taken or taxed.” The materials are not ideological just in spots, but rather contain thoroughgoing treatments of conservative positions about
government debt, regulation, wages, environmental policy, inequality, and so forth.36 Employees and store managers are given career and financial incentives to support participation in this training program. Thus the in- home training becomes an important mode of political activism for Menard.
Overall, Menard’s behavior constitutes a paradigmatic example of stealth
politics in action. A somewhat clearer example, in fact, than that of the much more immediately recognizable Koch brothers. Although the Koch
brothers have rarely expressed specific political views in public settings, the broad outlines of their highly conservative opinions and actions have—