Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Warren Buffet’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, was presented as a symbol of economic injustice by President Barack Obama during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night – but what nobody wants you to know is that Bosanek makes in excess of $200,000 a year.
Writing for Forbes Magazine, Paul Roderick Gregory called Bosanek a “stage prop” used by the president to show the unfairness of the tax system – the little person paying so much more in taxes than her billionaire boss.
Gregory decided to find out just how much Buffet pays this “downtrodden woman” seeing as no one was volunteering this information.
Although he doesn’t know if she’s married and filing jointly, or if she has any other income other than her job, Gregory used IRS data on tax rates by adjusted gross income to determine how much she’s being paid.
“Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do,” Gregory writes.
As of 2009, taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate, which means Debbie must be making more. The next bracket, which covers incomes from $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke at least $200,000 in order for her tax bill to be higher than his.
At this pay rate, Bosanek is hardly the kind of person the president should be using as an example of fiscal unfairness and the need for the “Buffet Rule.” For instance, during a speech in September, the president said: “Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There’s no justification for it. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million.”
But what about people making upwards of $200,000? Aren’t these the income levels the president wants to tax more? Aren’t these the people who aren’t paying their “fair share”? Why isn’t Debbie Bosanek being asked to pay more rather than being paraded around the national stage as the poster-child for the poor downtrodden over-taxed masses?
“I have nothing against Debbie Bosanke earning a half million or even more. Buffet is a major player in the world economy. His secretary deserves good compensation,” Gregory writes.
“At her income, however, she is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project.”
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