The Wall Street Journal has the news that BYD, the Chinese automaker in which Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's MidAmerican Energy holds about a 10% stake, is opening "an electric-bus assembly facility in Lancaster, Calif.," thereby "enabling its customers to tap federal subsidies that cover up to 80% of the cost of the electric buses they buy."
Mr. Buffett has won a lot of attention for offering to pay higher taxes (though the tax increase he is proposing would be immaterial to him because they would not apply to unrealized capital gains, which is where the bulk of his wealth is). But if he really wanted to make a contribution to the federal fiscal problem, a better way would be for him to turn down this subsidy (and all the other federal subsidies that support his businesses).
