Is Obama's Secretary in the Same 'Unfair' Boat as Warren Buffett's?

Time for the Obama Rule.

(Well get to that in a second).

According to Yahoos Theticket website, our president -- overly loquacious on the subject of tax fairness -- could have paid taxes on 2011 income at a lower rate than his secretary, thereby following in the steps of his billionaire buddy Warren Buffett. (Buffett, in case youve spent the past year holed up in a tax shelter in the Grand Caymans, pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary.)

Needless to say, both women (when is a high-achieving man going to break through the glass desk calendar to land a secretary job?) make way less money than their bosses.

According to Theticket, tax filings Obama released Friday for 2011 show he paid $162,074 in total taxes on an adjusted gross income of $789,674, an effective rate of 20.5 percent. His secretary, Anita Decker Breckenridge, made $95,000 in 2011, according to the White House's public report on West Wing pay.

The Buffett Rule, the latest in the presidentss repertoir of pointless re-election pablum -- which includes pass this bill right away, we cant wait and Joe Biden -- would ensure millionaires and billionaires pay at least 30 percent in federal income tax, thereby ensuring their contribution to the public wealth out-percentages their underlings.

Would it raise more federal revenue? No, the president acknowledges, but it would be fair. Would it speed the recovery? No, most economists say, but it might be fairer. Would it be fairer? No, anyone with a lick of sense would say, since it defines millionaires and billionaires as people making more than $250,000 a year. Remember the new math"?

Anyway, well let Yahoo pick it up for second:

Yahoo News earlier Friday turned to the Obama campaign's Buffett Rule calculator to conduct a little experiment. The calculator is an oversimplified tool, but it reported that married filers with Breckenridge's income would typically pay an effective rate of 20.9 percent (a hair above Obama's 20.5 percent), while filers married with children would pay 17.6 percent (somewhat less than the married-with-children president). While we know Breckenridge is married, without data like her husband's income, the calculator's information is chiefly for entertainment purposes."

And entertaining it is, as always when the sickeningly sanctimonious are shown to be tightfisted as the rest of America -- especially at tax time.

Which brings us back to the Obama rule we started with. Youve heard it before.

Do as I say, not as I do.