Obama To Hedge Fund Managers: You Should Be Taxed At Least As Much As Your Secretary

Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, equated efforts to raise taxes for hedge funders above 15% with “Hitler invading Poland in 1939.”  President Obama deftly handled tough questions at the CNBC town hall meeting Monday and got applause when he told the big money guys that he should have been tougher on them (via Mediaite).

Obama’s message to hedge fund managers: “Maybe you should taxed more like your secretary.”

Obama’s line came after CNBC pundit Anthony Scaramucci claimed that he and “the Wall Street community” have “felt like like a piñata.” Said Scaramucci:

And in response to Schwarzman’s comment:

After a huge crisis, the top 25 hedge fund managers took home a billion dollars in income that year. A billion! That’s the average for the top 25. … The secretary of a hedge fund is probably being taxed at 25 [percent], 28 [percent], right? And [the hedge fund managers] are being taxed at 15 [percent]. … The notion that somehow me saying, “Maybe you should be taxed more like your secretary when you’re pulling home a billion dollars or $100 million dollars a year,” I don’t think is me being extremist or me being anti-business.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.