Sen. Elizabeth Warren desires one among her greatest critics to face lawmakers in a hearing subsequent week, however that encounter can have to wait.

Warren, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts, invited billionaire investor Leon Cooperman to testify earlier than a Senate Finance subcommittee hearing on taxes.

Cooperman, in a response given to CNBC, declined the invitation, calling it “self-serving and disingenuous.”

“As I’ve said many occasions earlier than (together with in my Open Letter to Senator Warren), I consider in a progressive earnings tax.,” Cooperman wrote. “Personally, I’m blissful to work six months of the 12 months ‘for the federal government’ and 6 months for myself. But many who reside in high-tax cities and states already pay much more than the 50 % mixed efficient fee that that suggests, and at some level, larger efficient charges (federal, state, and native mixed) change into confiscatory, which ought to by no means be the ethos of this nation.” 

Warren, in a letter to Cooperman first obtained by CNBC, referred to as on the financier to attend a hearing being organized and led by the Finance Committee’s Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth subcommittee, which she chairs. The hearing, set for April 27, is titled Creating Opportunity Through a Fairer Tax System.

Warren instructed Cooperman within the letter she is keen on giving the longtime Wall Street government “a possibility to talk about my Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which might degree the financial taking part in area and slim the racial wealth hole by asking the wealthiest 100,000 households in America, or the highest 0.05%, to pay their justifiable share.” The letter was despatched to Cooperman on Monday.

A rivalry between Warren and Cooperman exploded through the Democrat’s marketing campaign for president. After she proposed a wealth tax through the major, Cooperman blasted her proposal in a letter to the lawmaker.

“However a lot it resonates together with your base, your vilification of the wealthy is misguided, ignoring, amongst different issues, the sources of their wealth and the substantial contributions to society which they already, unprompted by you, make,” he stated at the time.

A month later, Warren’s marketing campaign ran a TV advert on CNBC taking intention at Cooperman and other business leaders. Her marketing campaign additionally bought a mug that learn “BILLIONAIRE TEARS” in response to a CNBC interview during which Cooperman cried.

Cooperman has since accomplished quite a few interviews ripping Warren’s tax proposals, together with a CNBC look in March through which he suggested viewers to purchase gold if such a invoice passes.

“If the wealth tax passes, exit and purchase your self some gold as a result of individuals are going to rush to discover methods of hiding their wealth,” Cooperman told CNBC at the time.

Cooperman expressed skepticism Tuesday about Warren’s invitation.

“I’m attempting to decide whether or not she’s being goal or whether or not she’s simply attempting to promote her personal agenda,” Cooperman instructed CNBC in an announcement. “I’m a bit suspicious given how she by no means responded to the letter I despatched her earlier than.”

Cooperman, who will flip 78 two days earlier than the hearing, is without doubt one of the most outspoken members of the investor neighborhood. He typically speaks of his rags-to-riches story: rising up within the South Bronx because the baby of working-class Polish immigrants, attending public faculties, and beginning his first Wall Street job – with Goldman Sachs – in debt and with zero web value.

After greater than twenty years with Goldman, Cooperman based the hedge fund Omega Advisors in 1991. He is now the CEO of the Omega Family Office. Last 12 months, he signed the Giving Pledge, which is a dedication by wealthy individuals to donate a majority of their wealth to charity.

“That’s the American Dream,” he stated. “I would like to give others the chance to reside the American Dream.”

Warren addresses Cooperman’s points along with her wealth tax concept within the letter despatched Monday, encouraging him to talk about his considerations in entrance of her committee and people watching from residence.

“But as we transfer expeditiously towards consideration of adjustments to our rigged tax code in order that the rich pay their justifiable share, I consider try to be afforded the possibility to current your perspective instantly to Congress,” she writes to Cooperman. “The alternative will enable you to absolutely air your views, not merely in entrance of the monetary information viewers the place you typically categorical them, however earlier than the whole thing of the American individuals.”

Warren and different Democratic lawmakers have pitched a 3% total annual tax on wealth exceeding $1 billion.

They have additionally referred to as for a lesser, 2% annual wealth tax on the web value of households and trusts starting from $50 million to $1 billion.

Cooperman’s web value is at $2.5 billion, in accordance to Forbes.

Here is Cooperman’s full letter declining Warren’s invite:

As you recognize, I’ve been invited by Elizabeth Warren to testify at a hearing subsequent Tuesday, to be performed by the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth (which she chairs), entitled “Creating Opportunity Through a Fairer Tax System.”   The ostensible goal of her invitation is to give me a possibility to categorical my views about her newest “justifiable share” legislative proposals – particularly, her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act.  Since the Senator noticed match to publicize my invitation within the media, I’ll do the identical with this declination.

As I’ve simply knowledgeable her workplace, I cannot seem at Senator Warren’s hearing, for a number of causes:

• My views on this subject have been broadly disseminated and are, at this level, well-known.  In addition to an intensive Open Letter that I wrote to Senator Warren in October 2019 which was lined in each print and broadcast media at the time, I had earlier written an Op-Ed piece for the Financial Times of London that was subsequently picked up and republished in different print and on-line media.  I’ve expressed the identical views on a number of events on tv.  I don’t see the purpose of reiterating intimately what I’ve already stated so many occasions earlier than.  I connect a duplicate of my 2019 Open Letter to Senator Warren for any of those that care to refresh their reminiscence regarding the place I stand on this subject.  I’m assured that Senator Warren herself wants no such refreshing.
• I discover Senator Warren’s invitation self-serving and disingenuous.  As has been the case since we first locked horns on this matter throughout her failed presidential bid, she is wanting to grandstand at my expense and to use this hearing as a platform to advance her personal agenda.  Had she responded to my Open Letter instantly at the time and accepted my invitation to interact in a substantive dialog about how to bridge our philosophical divide, I would really feel otherwise now.  Instead, she most well-liked to fireplace off snarky tweets and peddle “Billionaire Tears” mugs on her web site to assist finance her sputtering marketing campaign, treating me with utter disdain.  This Senate hearing will, I consider, be of a bit with that dismissive therapy, performed in a showboating environment not conducive to critical debate.  I’m not keen on being pilloried by her whereas she makes use of me as a foil to promote her far-left manifesto.
• As I’ve said many occasions earlier than (together with in my Open Letter to Senator Warren), I consider in a progressive earnings tax.  Personally, I’m blissful to work six months of the 12 months “for the federal government” and 6 months for myself.  But many who reside in high-tax cities and states already pay much more than the 50 % mixed efficient fee that that suggests, and at some level, larger efficient charges (federal, state, and native mixed) change into confiscatory, which ought to by no means be the ethos of this nation.  I additionally consider that there are extra constructive approaches to advancing a progressive legislative agenda than an specific wealth tax whose efficacy has been broadly debunked in the actual world.  Congress may begin by eliminating numerous loopholes in our tax code that enable a lot seepage via the cracks, together with the exemption of capital good points from taxation upon loss of life, the carried-interest exemption for private-equity and hedge funds, and the capital-gains tax-deferral choice accorded like-kind exchanges below Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code.  Our legislators may then transfer on to enacting some type of the Buffett Rule (repeatedly rejected by Congress because it was first proposed in 2012), which might implement a surtax on taxpayers making over $1 million a 12 months to higher make sure that the very best earners pay their justifiable share.  But none of those play to the gang in addition to Senator Warren’s soak-the-rich marketing campaign – another excuse I do not count on to obtain a good hearing have been I to seem at her present trial.
•  Most importantly, Congress ought to begin inspecting in earnest how to fund progressive applications via revenue-neutral proposals that might cull bureaucratic waste slightly than add additional to administrative bloat – once more, important however boring, so not one thing of curiosity to most progressive politicians like Senator Warren.

In all of this, I’m reminded of the phrases of the famous economist Thomas Sowell:

“High tax charges within the higher earnings brackets enable politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, portray their opponents as defenders of the wealthy.  Meanwhile, the identical politicians can win donations from the wealthy by creating loopholes that may maintain the wealthy from really paying these larger taxes – or maybe any taxes at all.  What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare.  Slippery speak about ‘equity’ is at the center of this fraud by politicians searching for to squander extra of the nation’s sources.”

These, then, are my causes for respectfully declining Senator Warren’s invitation.  I’ll, nevertheless, be certain to tune in for the present.

Lee