Some of the Super-Rich are Gunning For Bush

Warren Buffett and George Soros Helping Kerry

Buffett is just the latest member of the super-rich community to fight Bush after announcing he is to become an economic adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. This comes after financier and philanthropist George Soros said he was devoting his life and personal fortune to getting Bush out of office.

At the core of their stand are Bush’s tax policies, such as estate tax repeal. Both men have publicly stated that they believe any tax cut plans for the rich will alienate the middle classes and do nothing to improve job creation.

But Soros says he has also been motivated by Bush’s foreign policy, once commenting that it was "destroying my business". He believes that the Iraq war is damaging US interests abroad. He wrote recently: "When President Bush says, as he does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means that America will prevail. In a free and open society, people are supposed to decide for themselves what they mean by freedom and democracy, and not simply follow America’s lead.

Backing Bush: George Bush has managed to amass a campaign fund of more than $185m so far and is on course to raise a record- breaking $250m before the US goes to the polls.

He has the backing of Richard Mellon Scaife, 71, right, a billionaire Republican newspaper mogul believed to have been the main money man behind the anti-Clinton campaign after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Conspiracy theorists point to the Halliburton Corporation which was given a multi-billion, no-bid contract in Iraq by the Bush White House. Vice-president Dick Cheney is the former CEO of Halliburton.

Typical of the large corporations that have backed Bush is First Energy Corp, of Ohio. Bush’s Environmental Protection Act eliminated the very Clean Air Act provision the company had violated 11 times.

The pharmaceutical industry has contributed almost a million dollars to Bush. An old friend of, and donor to, the President, David Halbert, who is a drug benefit company CEO, drafted part of a Medicare plan rewarding drug and insurance firms.

el - These understate amounts which often go to non-profit groups that run political education ads.