Warren Buffett: Leave my secretary alone
Buffett said Gregory “doesn’t have any idea, just zero. If I were to estimate his salary, I’d probably be closer than he is.” You can’t estimate salaries from tax rates, he said.
Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said the issue isn’t Bosanek’s income, nor is her tax rate unusually high. “They can’t attack the facts, so they attack the person. It’s ridiculous.”
Bosanek said she’s not complaining about her salary or the taxes she pays, nor will she apologize for the home she bought last year in Surprise, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. One blogger announced that she made the purchase “despite a heavy tax burden.”
“I just thought it was time to buy a home,” she said. “Warren tells me that it will be the best opportunity in my lifetime. Mortgage rates are low and prices have dropped dramatically. Getting a nice home in a great climate for only a $30,000 down payment and a mortgage that has a low interest rate — I’ve been working 37 years and saving for an opportunity like this.
Blowback
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You can’t ask us to base tax law on someone’s personal situation, then tell us the details on that situation are none of our business.
LilyBart on January 27, 2012 at 1:39 PM
The saddest part is none of this nonsense was rebutted during the Republican response the other night, and nothing was said about Warren fighting the government to not pay millions in back taxes while saying he doesn’t get taxed enough, etc.
xblade on January 27, 2012 at 1:51 PM
Hey, hey! Pointing out the discrepancies between the President’s rhetoric and the facts is rascist.
/Lib
Walter Kovacs on January 27, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Bah, this is nothing more than Buffet protecting his straw woman. It also seems clear that the secretary quite enjoys being a donkey’s doxy. They can protest all they want, the truth is obvious.
oryguncon on January 27, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Tell Obama to stop using her as a stage prop first, champ.
JammieWearingFool on January 27, 2012 at 1:54 PM
You sit with the Lt. Worf at the SOTU, allow yourself to be a prop for the Socialist in Chief, and when someone asks you to clarify your ridiculous assertion that you pay over 35% tax rate you say ‘stop intruding on my privacy’?
F you lady, and the billionarie you rode in on.
ps…Surprise is a dump. a foreclosre and short sale wastland straddling a major rail line. not, repeat not a good investment to buy RE in surprise AZ. you got some poor advice ma’am.
DrW on January 27, 2012 at 2:05 PM
Oh, boo-hoo-hoo… I willingly allowed myself to be used at as political tool and now I’m being attack for being a political tool… oh, boo-hoo-hoo. Guess I’ll just have to cry myself to sleep in one of my eight bedrooms, in one of my two houses, in different states. Oh boo-hoo-hoo, what is your work-a-day secretary suppose to do?
RMOccidental on January 27, 2012 at 2:14 PM
This is like that kid that the Dems used as a prop during the SCHIP debate. Turns out his family owned a $700K home and yet he was the poster boy – literally – for “low income” health insurance for kids.
When the kid’s family was exposed as a fraud, the Democrats were outraged at the mean Republican attacks on innocent children.
angryed on January 27, 2012 at 2:14 PM
*snort* He’s the one who brought her out in the limelight in the first place. I recall an article of something along the lines of “My secretary makes more money than I do”. Isn’t that what started all the scrutiny in the first place, dipstick?
The blame falls squarely on you…oh I forget…nothing is ever a Dem’s fault, is it? Here’s an idea…let’s blame Bush.
sage0925 on January 27, 2012 at 2:16 PM
You brought her up, chump.
cptacek on January 27, 2012 at 2:23 PM
It’s obvious that this woman is extremely well paid, and that she doesn’t in any way represent the “average middle class” employee. Both the tax rate she pays, and the fact that they are steadfastly refusing to give any details of her salary after trotting her out into the public eye, is proof of that.
However, don’t expect that to matter. The “Warren Buffet’s secretary pays more than he does” line is much easier to understand, and feel outrageous outrage about, than is the counter argument. This is always the case. Conservatives have the correct argument, the most logical argument. But it’s not the one that can most often be boiled down into a one-sentence emotional tag line.
Start to explain ordinary income vs. capital gains, and why the two are different, and how Mitt Romney’s income is already doubly taxed because it flows through a corporation, and the economics of how lower capital gains rates spur job creation, and so forth, and the average voter is just going to tune you out after the first sentence. Say “Warren Buffet’s secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does and that’s unfair” and people cheer.
It’s always been that way, and always will be, and it’s why those of us on the right have a much taller hill to climb.
Shump on January 27, 2012 at 2:23 PM
No way she’s paying that much tax on a $60K income. No frickin’ way.
matd on January 27, 2012 at 2:26 PM
Aw, too bad, Buffet treated her like a prop and is now upset people are treating her like a real person with a real salary. Ain’t it a bitch when the other side gets to ask questions too?
slarrow on January 27, 2012 at 2:40 PM
First of all they’ll never disclose that.
Second – it’s entirely possible that she has a base salary of $60,000, plus all kinds of other taxable shizzle and you add in city, county, state, and re-elect Zero taxes.
CorporatePiggy on January 27, 2012 at 3:06 PM
How can you leave her alone. she took up the whole tv screen during the SOTU
Funny how that works. Other people lose their homes because manufacturing has been shipped overseas, so house prices drop, so secretaries to billionaires can by an extra home dramatically cheaper because the unemployed could not pay their balloon notes. Interest rates are low because the Fed is keeping them there or we cant borrow any more money to cover the losses caused by manufacturing being shipped overseas.
Oil was almost 100 dollars a barrel yesterday, and Buffett’s guy Obama won’t let us pipe in oil from Canada, but you can ship the factory overseas and the Chinese will manufacture using the Canadian oil Buffet’s guy wouldn’t let us buy
No wonder Buffett’s secretary was in the SOTU spotlight. She ought to be kissing Obama’s axle because it is his policies that allow her to buy a second home on a dime. I do not look at her appearance as a political stunt. I look on her arrival as a pilgrimage to the source of all second homes.
My late Mom was private secretary to a lawyer to one of the biggest shots of her era. He used to get calls to split a melon. Once he turned to Mom and laughed “Never play the market unless you know someone” He offered her the equivalent of a second home on the cheap. He offered to let her buy shares on land in a cow town called Phoenix. (Dad wouldn’t let her). My Mom took her salary, did a great job. She made me into the hard axe I am today. Dad too. His philosophy: you don’t pluck a chicken when it’s leg is broke
Richard Ney has some great quotes
entagor on January 27, 2012 at 3:28 PM
Rush mentioned today that little Bammie doesn’t seem to have gotten the message, because today he is still flogging the secretary meme.
slickwillie2001 on January 27, 2012 at 3:44 PM
For being such a shrewd analyst, he sure blew it by bringing her into his statements. I’m all for him using his money for the good of mankind, but giving it to the government isn’t really helping anybody except more wasteful politicians and bureaucrats. I’d rather see them invest in profitable ventures, or useful research than to hand any more to the kind of jerks who only use it to advance their utopian dreams of a socialist nation with themselves at the top.
flataffect on January 27, 2012 at 3:47 PM
This is nonsense. First of all, it is virtually guaranteed that their tax rate is based on a “married filing jointly” tax return meaning the tax rate does not depend on HER income, but their combined income.
Furthermore if Buffet is trying to claim this “private” then its also likely that the only thing he knows about her tax situation is her gross witholding percentage, and even THEN I highly doubt even THAT is 35.8% on a $60,000 income. I make more than DOUBLE what she is alleged to make and my gross tax witholding percentage is only 23.3%. And while her SS / Medicare witholdings would be a larger percentage of her salary than mine, my income tax witholdings, which are less than half of my FICA witholdings.
The only way you can get close to 35% would be to include both my 401(k) and benefit witholdings. As it is, making double what Bosanek makes, my total witholdings are only 30%.
I call 100% complete BS on this whole thing.
deadrody on January 27, 2012 at 3:55 PM
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