Warren Buffett to headline Obama fundraisers

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is slated to headline a pair of fundraisers for President Barack Obama in the coming weeks, Crain's Chicago Business reports.

On October 27, Buffett will attend a $35,800-per-ticket fundraiser at the Chicago-area home of investment banker Byron Trott. From Crain's:

The Oct. 27 event will be co-hosted by James Crown, Penny Pritzker, John Rogers Jr. and other major local donors who fueled Mr. Obama's first presidential campaign and are lining up to back him again. Mr. Obama is not expected to attend, according to Mr. Rogers, chairman of Ariel Investments LLC. Neither the Obama campaign nor Mr. Trott's spokeswoman had any immediate comment.

Obama campaign officials later confirmed the event to Reuters.

Crain's reports that Trott is not an "outspoken" Obama supporter. The former Goldman Sachs partner, who now runs his own investment firm, has donated money to both Democrats and Republicans over the years. In fact, campaign finance records show that Trott donated $2,500 to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in June. In 2008, Trott gave money to Obama, Romney and Republican nominee John McCain.

Next week, Buffett is also scheduled to attend a fundraising event in New York for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Tickets for that event range from $10,000 to $35,800.

According to Crain's, both events will be moderated by Austan Goolsbee, until recently the chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers and now a University of Chicago law professor.

Obama's recently unveiled deficit plan includes the so-called "Buffett rule," which would have Americans earning $1 million or more a year pay at least the same rate as middle-class earners.

In August, Buffett wrote a widely-discussed op-ed in The New York Times titled "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich," in which he argued that most mega-rich people "wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering."