By Harry Bradford, – The Huffington Post Posted: 11/14/2012 5:32 pm EST /Updated: 11/14/2012 5:32 pm EST
Rest assured. Despite the fiscal cliff hysteria currently gripping the nation, an Oracle has spoken, and he says there’s nothing to fear.
Billionaire philanthropist and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha for his investing prowess, says that no matter what happens in the fiscal cliff debate, the Americans won’t “permanently cripple ourselves.” That being said, we’d be a lot better off if Congress united, especially Republican representatives, he told CNNMoney.
“If 25 Republicans put country before party we won’t go over the fiscal cliff,” he said during an interview with CNNMoney.
But even if lawmakers succumb to gridlock, it probably won’t last long or do much damage, Buffett added.
“[If Congress] can’t get along for the month of January, it’s not going to torpedo the economy.”
Buffett hasn’t been afraid to make his views known on similar issues in the past. During the debt ceiling debate last year, for example, Buffett warned that the Republican-controlled Congress was “going to blow your brains out” by not raising the debt ceiling. He also said that not raising the debt ceiling would be the “most asinine act” in Congressional history.
This time around fellow economists have made statements echoing Buffett’s. Larry Summers warned that the fiscal cliff should not “become a license for terror.” Meanwhile, New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has accused the GOP of “holding America hostage” by demanding the extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Watch Warren Buffet’s interview with CNNMoney above.