The Vote Pump

For lunch, after we got home from Des Moines, I got out a frozen pizza and loaded it with pepperoni. Then into the oven it went until ready to eat. And I ate the whole thing! This is a big 12 incher so it was no small thing. Thus right now, I am not all that hungry. Wife figured out as much since I ate that pizza about 1pm or so, and she had a bowl of oatmeal about 130pm. So she did not start on dinner and I told her just to bypass that for tonight. If I get the munchies, I will find something to fill the void. Takes some of the workload off my wife.

Our wedding anniversary is Valentine’s Day. Yes, we tied the knot on a great day for sure way back when (okay, 1999). Spent our honeymoon in San Antonio, Texas. Today my wife gave me my marching orders as to what to get her this year! She was watching the View on tv and some guy with some exercise routine was on. She says, I want that DVD and a new player. So said no problem honey, you got both. See how easy it is when you get old? Hahahahahahah…..

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Talk about a reality check. Bill Whittle breaks down where our tax money goes and exactly why we’re headed for collapse if we don’t fix it. Scary stuff people!

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Then our president, Barack Obama, being freaking clueless yet again!

(Fox News) — President Obama tells a college audience that people don’t get rich on their own. Obama’s point that without government and paying your fair share, ultimately the successful wouldn’t be able to get where they are.

“We do not begrudge wealth in this country. I want everybody here to do well. We aspire to financial success, but we also understand that we’re not successful just by ourselves,” President Obama said at a campaign event in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Friday morning.

“We’re successful because somebody started the University of Michigan. We’re successful because somebody made an investment in all the federal research labs that created the internet. We’re successful because we have an outstanding military that costs money. We’re successful because somebody built roads and bridges. And laid broadband lines and these things didn’t just happen on their own. And if we all understand that we’ve got to pay for this stuff, it makes sense for those of us who’ve done best to do our fair share and to try to pass off that bill on to somebody else, that’s not right. That’s not who we are,” he said.

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As stage props go, $200,000 is pretty pricey. But that’s the low end of how much Warren Buffett’s secretary earns in a year, based on IRS tax tables and the information she’s made public.

Still less than her billionaire boss, but still. Can anyone fail to see the irony of President Obama inviting Debbie Bosanek to sit by his wife for his State of the Union Address to use her as an example of tax unfairness, when the Buffett aide likely earns enough to put a bullseye on her back for the tax hikes Obama has long called for on higher earners?

Bosanek and Buffett have told us that he pays federal taxes (mainly on capital gains) at a rate of 17.4 percent, and that she’s taxed (presumably on normal income) at a higher rate. But IRS tax tables from 2009, the most recent year available, show an average federal tax rate of just 12 percent for taxpayers in the $100,000 to $200,000 bracket, rising to 19 percent for people with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000.

So Debbie Bosanek probably is in that $200,000 to $500,000 bracket.

If this is accurate — neither Buffett nor Bosanek has released their tax returns, but only given us a few facts meant to flesh out his claim that she pays a higher rate — she may even be part of the infamous 1 percent. In 2009, that required an adjusted gross income of $343,947.

Adjusted gross income. That’s important. Adjusted gross income is what a person is taxed on after deductions for things like the personal exemption, mortgage-interest payments, qualifying tax credits, etc. So it’s possible her raw salary is even higher.

While running for president and since taking office, Obama has been calling for higher taxes on upper-income earners. He’s been all over the map on that, sometimes saying on the campaign trail he meant millionaires but generally backing legislation that would hike taxes on earnings starting in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.

I have a feeling Buffett and Bosanek are all over the map on their tax-rate claims, too.

ABC News this week used tax information selectively supplied to them by Buffett and Bosanek to make the case for how unfair the nation’s tax system is. It reported, “Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.”

I don’t know how that’s possible, as the maximum federal income-tax rate is 35 percent. The average tax rate for the top 1 percent of earners was 24.01 percent in 2009, according to the IRS. And we’ve been talking about income taxes, have we not?

NY Post

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Obama’s NLRB Considers Forcing Businesses To Turn Over Employee Phone Numbers, Email Addresses To Union Bosses…Read HERE.

Gingrich Strikes Back at Ann Coulter

And do read every day, to keep up with the islamics who are out to ruin us, to kill us, to take over the world, HERE.