It is stunning what a lying President of the United States can get away with when all but several newspapers and news services in our country are his devoted lapdogs.
We Are Squishy for Swishy, as the boys on the Angry Left love to say.
Next to Mad Michelle’s daily purchases of obscenely expensive party dresses – a nouveau riche girl should be prepared – the most sizzling prop in the land this morning is one Debbie Bosanek.
For the following investigative journalism, we are indebted to radio commentator Mark Levin and to the ever-alert wisdom of the gentlemen over at powerlineblog.com
Ever since he met billionaire Warren Buffet a few months ago, Swishy has responded like a bulldog with a mangy bone or a toothless cat with a ball of gooey yarn. Everywhere Swishy goes, he brays about “My friend Warren,” moaning that it is criminal that “my friend Warren pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.”
From sea to shining sea, empathetic Americans sank to their knees in a display of admirable shared pity.
Poor, wretched – Lawdy, here comes the left’s favorite lie again – victimized Debbie Baby.
My favorite Buffet story occurred the evening his wife turned to “my friend Warren” and said, “Let’s go upstairs and make love.”
“Make up your mind,” said he. “One or the other.”
I digress. After Swishy convinced America that meanie Republicans were responsible for making Debbie Baby shamefully pay a higher tax rate than her wealthy boss, Debbie Baby was invited to sit beside Mad Michelle, garbed in tomorrow’s new party gown, at Tuesday night’s State of the Disunion address.
Slavishy, cameras panned to Debbie Baby and M.M. Ain’t she cute? Poor, too. What a Daily Double. She probably settles for bread-and-water three or four days out of seven.
Not quite. Turns out she earns a salary somewhere north of $200,000 and owns at least two homes, with putting greens and pools.
To elaborate, here is what Powerline reported:
Over at Broadside Books, Michael Patrick Leahy digs a little deeper to try to fine tune the analysis, drawing on this ABC puff piece (watch the whole thing here). Still the details are hard to get straight:
The Obama campaign communications team – in this case, ABC News – teamed up this evening with Warren Buffett and his secretary, Debbie Bosanek, to selectively release some information about their personal tax returns. Note that neither Mr. Buffett nor Ms. Bosanek took the transparent approach of releasing their complete tax returns for the past four years for review by the entire public, as I called on them to do yesterday.
Here’s what they claimed in the ABC report: “Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.”
It’s hard to interpret this statement without additional information. Do they mean “effective tax rate” or “marginal tax rate”?
When they say “income,” do they mean total gross income or taxable income?
Since the top marginal rate on taxable income (which kicks in when taxable income exceeds $379,150) is 35%, it’s impossible that Ms. Bosnak’s claim that she pays a tax rate of 35.8 % applies to her taxable income. Since taxable income is always less than total gross income, the claim is even less credible for that measure.
Despite these factual inconsistencies, Bosanek doubled down, putting herself forward as the face of Obama’s tax inequality mantra:
“I just feel like an average citizen. I represent the average citizen who needs a voice…Everybody in our office is paying a higher tax rate than Warren.”
If she’s really paying a marginal rate of 35%, she’s earning over $379,150 per year in taxable income, which places her in the top 1% of income earners nationally. If this is true, Ms. Bosanek is anything but an average citizen. An average citizen – say someone who earns the median salary of a secretary to a CEO, which is $67, 791, according to a 2011 survey conducted by Certified Compensation Professionals – pays a much lower effective tax rate on taxable income than Ms. Bosanek. Assuming this average citizen took about $15,000 in deductions, she would pay an effective tax rate of 17% on taxable income of $52,791, the same rate Mr. Buffett claims to be paying.
In whatever state or country Swishy is endlessly campaigning in this morning – anything to avoid working, governing –he is giggling fiendishly after winning another Gotcha game over duped American voters.
