(But the difference is: I get my facts from the loud, fat guy from Missouri who dropped out of college — and also knows the US tax code inside out. Cuz he has to.)
Canadian newspaper editor on Facebook:
I thought Obama said the right things today — including things that a lot of people were hoping he’d start saying …
And I’m glad he drew on Warren Buffett to make his points.
It is indeed insane that Buffett’s secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.
Lowly blogger bitch (me) responds:
So, er… why not just… LOWER the secretary’s taxes…?
Which I stole from Limbaugh’s monologue yesterday:
The whole argument for the Buffett Rule is Buffett himself says it’s not fair that he’s paying a lower tax rate on his capital gains and dividend income than his secretary pays on her earned income. It just isn’t fair. The only problem is that is completely untrue. It’s a great sounding argument, comes together as a nice sound bite, but it is untrue.
Buffett is paying a tax in his dividend and capital gains on money that’s already been taxed once before as income. So you have to add that first tax rate to the second lower rate on capital or dividends to find out what somebody’s actually paying on it. Of course that’s too complicated, and they’re not gonna get into that kind of an explanation here, anyway. They’re just gonna try to draw a contrast between the two rates: Capital gains at 15% and income at 36% or 35%, something like this.
The top rate — and that’s what they’re gonna raise, because Warren Buffett, “he’s only paying 15%.” Not true. If he has any earned income he’s paying just the same rate as anybody else, and will. Now, the difference is if the only thing that goes up is the earned income tax rate, Warren Buffett’s tax rate won’t go up — unless they raise capital gains, which Obama is talking about doing as well.
I think it’s a little ironic and typical of the floundering position Obama finds himself in to name a tax plan after a guy whose company hasn’t paid their taxes for about half of the last ten years. I mean, Buffett is still arguing. He owes a billion dollars in taxes! That’s what he’s arguing about. The Feds say he owes a billion and he doesn’t want pay a billion so he’s in dispute with them, yet here comes a guy who owes a billion dollars to the Treasury and Obama’s naming a tax increase plan after the guy!
You see — as Limbaugh explained yesterday, and AP is now confirming:
Turns out secretaries don’t pay more taxes than their bosses in the first place.
It’s a… what’s the expression…?
Oh, yeah:
