President Obama will reportedly use Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, as a prop for his reelection campaign’s class warfare theme tonight. Buffett has written in The New York Times that while his effective tax rate is only only 17.4 percent, the average tax burden in his office, which includes Debbie, is 36 percent.
Considering that, according to the IRS, the effective rate for individuals making more than $100,000 is only 26.3 percent, many analysts have questioned the accuracy of Buffett’s claim. According to The Tax Policy Center, a full 60 percent of American pay a lower effective rate than Buffett does.
If Obama is going to demagogue this issue, and if Ms. Bosanek is going to let herself be a prop in this fight, she is going to have to back up Buffett’s claims with some facts.
If Obama wants to make the case for massive tax hikes based on a single anecdote, the press should demand to make sure that anecdote is at least true.
