Warren Buffett famously noted that his secretary paid a higher income tax rate than he did. It was a good illustration of the reason we have such high income inequality in this country. As one goes very high in earnings, one’s tax rate goes down. This is primarily because we don’t tax capital gains as much as we do earned income. The government is implicitly saying that owning is more valuable than working. Yes Virginia, we have a very screwed up country.

Conservatives struck back with one primary argument, “If Warren Buffett wants to pay more taxes, no one is stopping him.” It is a shaming argument implying (and sometimes saying explicitly) that Buffett is trying to force others to pay more in taxes and that he ought to just shut up. The argument has a certain appeal because it is technically right. It does make Buffett sound a bit hypocritical.

There are a couple of problems. The most obvious is that in saying this, Buffett is using himself as an example of how the policy is bad. He is making a policy argument. But no one ever makes this argument against the Koch brothers. They argue that their taxes should be lower and so no one can say that they should just pay less than they have to. So the argument here is that rich people can’t advocate for higher taxes but they can advocate for lower taxes.

What’s more, the idea behind the shaming argument is simply to take attention off the cruelty of the policy. By saying that Buffett should just pay more taxes himself and shut up, they are implicitly saying that it is just fine that the Koch brothers pay less tax than their secretaries. Since conservatives have no reasonable arguments for why this ought to be that way, they simply change the subject. It isn’t about the middle class getting screwed for the benefit of the rich; it’s about the rich getting screwed by that old meanie Warren Buffett.

Most conservative arguments on any issue come down to a belief that any privilege that the powerful have is God given. And in this case it is worse because Buffett is supposed is seen as a class traitor. The only way that the low capital gains tax can be a given is if everyone who matters agrees about it. It doesn’t matter what the poor think, because they just don’t get it. But if rich people break rank on this issue, it undermines the definitional aspect of low capital gains taxes. Thus Buffett must be destroyed as a hypocrite who could choose to pay more in taxes. No rich person should question God’s law.