Obama, Buffet & The Debster

Remember "Show & Tell" time during the State of the Union address? Sitting right next to no less than Moochelle Obama was Debbie Bosenek. Never heard of her? She's Warren Buffett's secretary and is the new Obama poster child for taxing the rich. Seems even though those top 1 percenters pay 40% of the income taxes collected each year that isn't enough according to Obamamaniac. Now this woman must be very important in the American tax scheme of things. Obama wants to hinge the whole shebang of tax code reform with her as the model to emulate. Not bad for someone most people never heard of, much less seen prior to Tuesday nights campaign speech. The logic is to slap a large tax increase on upper income earners, kill lord knows how many jobs and all because she pays a higher tax rate than Warren. Come on, that makes no sense what-so-ever and economists back that statement up. This amounts to total ignorance of economics or outright class warfare.

Now Obama mentioned her by name and the camera panned up there at her smiling face as Moochelle grinned along with her. If I remember correctly that chair next to any First Lady is usually occupied by a true hero in this country. Seems we have a new hero that galloped over the horizon without us taking notice huh? So how come no one seems to know much, if anything, about this woman who has such sway over Obama that he proposes to make her the poster child for an even more punitive tax code? It all sounded great, didn't it? But the FACTS seem to have been missed again by our Deceiver-in-Chief. How dare he! What is her salary? How much tax does she pay and what percentage do they swipe from her check? But then it stretches even further and he wants people to believe that Debbie pays more in absolute dollars than Warren Buffet does? Come on. Warren more than likely pays hundreds of times more than what little Debbie pays in taxes. Mitt Romney does too. But that is comparing apples to oranges which our Prez seems content to do all the time.

The debate is now raging about how the data came into Obama's possession to make this grand "not at all equal" comparison. His exact words were, "Right now, Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than than his secretary." So using that rationale he wants to up the ante on all people making more than $1 million per year? Since IRS laws protect Warren and Debbie's tax records it isn't like Obama can just simply look at them. It seems that since then news hounds have sent multiple requests to The Whine House asking how that information was known. Do you think any of them have gotten an answer? Don't hold your breath on it. They also wanted to know if Warren and the Debster had given their tax returns to Obama would he release that info? No answer. Hey, smoke and mirrors will always be just that with the Obamamaniac. Requests have been made to Warren's office asking that those records be released so the American public can be truly informed. Nothing, not even a peep, coming from that direction.

Back in 2010 old Warren did release some figures though not his tax returns. He laid it out like this: Adjusted gross income (line 37) was $62,855,038, taxable income (line 43) amounted to $39,814,784 with a federal income tax paid (line 60) of $6,923,494. He added that his payroll taxes were $15,300.

Along comes Forbes magazine, that's a financial magazine for my liberal readers, with an estimate that old Debster, the secretary, makes somewhere between $200K to $500K in salary per year. Man, I'm in the wrong line of work. The way Forbes did that estimate was by using the tax tables to estimate the salary range based upon the tax rate paid. See the paragraph above. Here's some more to chew on that Forbes reported, "The latest results are for 2009. They show that tax payers earning an adjusted gross income between $100K and $200K pay an average rate of 12%. That is below Buffet's rate, so she must earn more than that. Tax payers earning adjusted gross incomes on $200K to $500K pay an average tax rate of 19 percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand."

Since the average CEO's secretary makes $67K a year it isn't like the Debster is going to the poor farm anytime soon. One writer pointed out that Warren is playing 3 card monte with his figures which he is indeed doing. He conflates payroll taxes, commonly known as FICA, which are only collected on wages, limited by the way to insure a limited retirement income. Those are "contributions" and not really "taxes." It is highly recommended that you consider paying them though. What then happens is that the federal money munching monster then comingles those funds with general revenue funds. Why you ask? They do that to make the federal deficit look better than reality. Since Warren is one of the richest men in the world and the bulk of the money he makes It comes from investment income, it would naturally follow that the folks working for Buffet in his inner office pay a higher percentage in FICA taxes, which aren't really taxes, than he does.

I hope I'm explaining this better than Obama did because he doesn't know squat about any of it. Here's what Obama left out of the puzzle. Buffet's investment income, derived from capital gains and dividends, has already been taxed at 35%. That's the world's highest corporate tax rate at this writing. So then he pays double taxation when he pays his personal taxes. Obama failed to mention that too as Warren also does. Smoke and mirrors are still smoke and mirrors. What kind of tax rate does he really pay considering the FACTS I just laid out for you? Try 44% and not 15%. So who is paying a higher tax rate in relation to income - Warren or the Debster?

Here's an easy way to analyze the concept of corporate profits being taxed. Keep in mind that those profits belong to the stockholders. Just play pretend that this is you if it isn't. You own a rental house. After all your expenses are paid you realize an income of $25K. You're in the 30% tax bracket so you shell out $7,500 in income taxes and the remainder of $17,500 you put in your pocket. But wait! Here comes the feds deciding that your rental property has to file its own tax return using a 35% tax rate. That's to insure fairness you understand. So then your house pays $8,750 in income tax. Follow along please. So then the remainder of $16,250 you get to keep. But since you're in the 30% tax bracket you have to shell out another $4,875 to the money munchers. So the remainder then is $11,375 and not the original $17,500 you were anticipating. What has happened is that you have now paid a 45.5% tax rate on your property and not your 30% rate. How fair can it be?

So back to Warren. Warren Buffet isn't a moron. What he is doing is calling a 45.5% tax rate a 30% rate and that is lying through his teeth. For Obama to parrot that nonsense we should all have come to expect by now. Right behind the Obamamaniac is our Lame Stream Media expecting you and me to slurp up that koolaid. Just do the math and understand the actual FACTS and ignore the smoke and mirrors.

Instead of trying to reform the tax code using the Debster model, lets try this out for size. Remember that almost 50% of the working population doesn't pay one skinny penny in income tax into the coffers. Lets put the tax smack down on those folks along the way too. Make it fair you see. Obama was all about "fairness" the other night. I tire of paying for the goodies for those who shirk their "civic responsibility" by failing to pay their fair share. How about you?

FOOTNOTE: Since penning this another interesting fact has emerged about the Debster. Poor old Debbie and her hubby also own a vacation home in Arizona with a pool and all the trappings. So Obama is going to reform the tax code based upon Debbie Bosenek? No, what he is waging is a very subtle form of class warfare only not so subtly.

As Always,

The Frog Prince

PS - Since the deficit Super Committee failed to produce, which it was never supposed to do in the first place and Obama got his extra spending money, every man, woman and child in this country now owes $48K. Ready to stroke that check my progressive/liberal countrymen?