A good chunk of [Warren Buffett's] fortune is dependent on taxpayer largess. Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company's stock holdings would have been wiped out.

Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27 percent, according to a recent proxy filing, has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. The TARP at one point had nearly $100 billion invested in these companies and, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters, FDIC backs more than $130 billion of their debt.
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He even traded the bailout, seeking morally hazardous profits in preferred stock and warrants of Goldman and GE because he had "confidence in Congress to do the right thing" -- to rescue shareholders in too-big-to-fail financials from the losses that were rightfully theirs to absorb.
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And what of Moody's, the credit-rating agency that enabled lending excesses Buffett criticizes, and in which he's held a major stake for years? Recently Berkshire cut its stake to 16 percent from 20 percent. Publicly, however, the Oracle of Omaha has been silent.

This is remarkably incongruous for the world's most famous financial straight-shooter. Few have called him on it, though one notable exception was a good article by Charles Piller in the Sacramento Bee earlier this year.

Buffett didn't respond to my email seeking a comment.

What saddens me is that Buffett is uniquely positioned to lobby for better public policy, but he's chosen to spend his considerable political capital protecting his own holdings. ... there's nothing fair about Buffett getting a bailout, about exploiting the taxpaying public for his own gain. ... What would Ben Graham say?