For those who are unaware, Debbie Bosanek is Warren Buffett’s secretary, and she is the new avatar of tax unfairness as President Obama enters campaign mode. Ridiculous as the tax code is, I can’t say I feel sorry for her; she’s working with a guy who probably treats her very well, and you’d have to be making bank to work that closely with him, however much of it you end up losing. So the question is, why does she pay taxes at a higher rate than him, and does Obama understand why?

Because Buffett makes his money through a variety of investments, he has access to plenty of tax breaks that Bosanek does not. Therefore, when his tax burden is calculated at the end of the year, he pays a lower percentage than she does, even though he should be paying 35 percent. Republicans are quick to assume that Obama’s call for a 30 percent tax rate for millionaires means he wants to raise marginal rates. If he was really referring to closing loopholes, he certainly wasn’t clear about it.

STORY #2: No child’s behind left

The same sort of rush to judgment was at work when Sen. Mike “Exclamation Point” Lee (R-UT) started shrieking (according to the article) about Obama’s call for all states to prevent students from dropping out before the age of 18. Even Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), one of Obama’s biggest irritants, took it as an encouragement instead of a federal mandate. Apparently the federal government can’t even comment on state affairs without some fools assuming an intrusion.

While I personally believe curricular reform, also a state and district priority, is a better way to retain potential dropouts, I would support an age-based restriction. The more time they spend in school, the less time they spend knocking over liquor stores, shooting up in alleys, getting preggers and making “art” that nobody wants to look at. And that’s much more of a drain on the system than a lazy-ass student.

STORY #3: They agree on something!

Despite the distinctly Southern-accented boo at Obama’s support for a ban on congressional insider trading, it’s happening in the Senate as we speak. The logic is that it would prevent members of Congress from using their knowledge of government-induced advantages to certain companies/industries for profit. I like the idea, but how would they enforce it before their tax returns are released? I doubt the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has that level of access. And companies/industries having deep knowledge of government machinations is more pervasive, but has yet to be addressed.

The guidelines were announced by First Lady Michelle Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and celebrity chef Rachael Ray, queen of chili cheese fries. They would impose limits on calories, salt, fats (especially trans fats) and various ingredients deemed unhealthy. School districts will receive federal funding to help with the transition, and will extend similar limits on subsidized meals for low-income students to all other meals.

The reasons school lunches have been so unhealthy in recent years is mostly economic. With schools and districts seeing their funding diminish, they have outsourced their food services to private corporations (notably Aramark, the heathens behind the cafeteria at my old college), who mostly depend on frozen and heavily processed food from one or two interstate suppliers. Were they to rely on fresh food from multiple local suppliers, you can bet they’d pass on the costs to the schools.

In short, healthier food is great, when you can get it. That’s the problem. The federal government wants to be the facilitator of less costly access to good food, which they’d be authorized to do if not for the mandate. Making school lunches healthier is relatively low on Americans’ list of “Things For Which We’ll Forgive New Federal Deficit Spending,” if it’s there at all. And with the First Lady spearheading it, it’s hard not to see it as a pet cause, which few want from her.

Instead of specific nutritional guidelines, which would be impossible to enforce without some new task force, they could make this effort simpler: buy local, fresh and healthy and keep current funding; buy the same old crap and get crap in return. It’s not impossible to find people in town who would gladly sell it to schools, often for the same price. Individual schools and districts have done it before without federal help. They need to be giving the advice.

In the end, when it comes to economics, people respond to governments when they offer rewards and punishments at the same time, not one or the other. President Obama has a habit of painting people into a corner when he wants them to do something. A person with better persuasion skills knows this is the surest way to make people rebel.

8:14: Education, manufacturing, jobs, technology, investment. Evoking the Greatest Generation. Oh, if only.

8:17: Good delivery tonight. Strong overtone of “there’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be solved by what’s right with America.”

8:21: At least he gets that manufacturing is the most important sector. A bit disconcerting that he measures success by three auto companies.

8:24: Lulz at Boehner’s grudging applause during attacks on outsourcing. Smile, bud. (Although hasn’t Obama been pushing this stuff for four years?)

8:28: Inspections of unfair trade practices and high-tech worker training in conjunction with community colleges. Hell yeah.

8:30: Unemployment into re-employment with training. Damn, that’s good.

8:35: DREAM Act . . . hoo boy.

8:36: Equal pay for women? Really?

8:40: R&D, domestic oil and gas, other domestic energy. Same ‘ol. With oil.

8:43: “I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.” No, he’ll just shift oil subsidies over there. Tsk tsk.

8:46: So spend half the amount of money you would have spent on the wars on infrastructure, and the other half on debt reduction. Sounds like something I would have come up with.

8:47: “A deficit of trust.” Dude, you DID NOT steal that from Huntsman.

8:49: Lame spilled milk joke. More stealing from Huntsman?

8:52: Plenty of boos for Richard Cordray, but he probably expected that.

8:54: Kind of loving the tone of “Get stuff done or I’ll kick your ass.”

8:59: Ah, “Washington sucks” talk. I think the only people who approve of Congress are in it.

9:00: LOUD boo on insider trading by members of Congress. I bet that guy is rich.

9:03: Booing Lincoln? Assholes.

9:04: Pakistan is officially an enemy now?

9:11: That guy who keeps booing sounds an awful lot like Ron Paul. . . .

While well over one hundred other members of Congress have agreed to sit with members of the opposite party at the SOTU – a growing tradition that No Labels engineered last year – Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) won’t be there at all. He’ll be watching on TV, on the ground that he “believes the president will be in full campaign mode and will use the address as an opportunity to bash his political opponents.” I can understand his anger. That’s his job, after all.

Is there anything more disingenuous than using a rhetorical rejection of partisanship to justify an actual act of partisanship? Lamborn can disagree with Obama all he wants; just as there is no formal rule to be present, there is no formal rule to agree with the president. And, granted, this is better than “You lie!” But I would think Lamborn would put his money where his mouth was when he said he respected the president’s office. If he did, its current occupier wouldn’t prevent him from getting his ass in the chair.

The same logic, if you can call it that, was clearly at work when Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas decided that we cared what he thought about politics. He is a libertarian and believes current policies have led to unnecessary growth in government. Fine. As long as he keeps the puck out of the net, I don’t think many Bostonians will react to this with anything more than an eye roll and a snarky tweet.

But when a president honors your Cup-winning team at the White House – a practice I would like to see ended for all championship sports teams – you damn well better show up. The president isn’t making it a political event, and neither should you. If anything, participating in the event would have allowed Thomas to engage with Obama, and others, about why he thinks his policies are bad. This is akin to giving the silent treatment to an alcoholic and hoping they’ll jump off the wagon on their own.

It’s too late for Thomas, but if his goal was to portray his decision as merely a choice and not a political snub, well, he’s in for a very painful five-hole. Some of us still believe that the president, as long as they haven’t committed a capital crime, is owed the respect of one’s presence when he or she requests it. It doesn’t happen to everyone.

In her condition, nobody expected that one vote from her, much less a hasty resignation – though I’m sure a few called for it. But for over a year, Arizona’s 8th congressional district has been without a representative. Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) will have to call a special election for the remainder of the term, a practice I disagreed with when Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned.

But Weiner was, in theory, capable of representing New York’s 9th district; he was less than 18 months away from getting his ass kicked, anyway. His constituents liked him, save for the misuse of congressional resources and the misuse of his own resources. They chose someone in his party, with his positions (no, not those kind of positions), to speak for them for two years. Those two years weren’t even half over.

In light of high-profile entanglements in Congress, I have come to rethink the contention I made the day of that column that “districts and states can survive with one less person speaking for them in Congress for that time.” Geographic, demographic and economic preferences can vary drastically in one district from the next district over. No representative can speak for two districts. Who speaks for the 8th District about SOPA, or deficit reduction, or Keystone XL between the day Giffords was shot and the day of the forthcoming special election?

While I sincerely hope that this will turn out to be a largely symbolic measure in a few years, it might be necessary now for an incoming representative or senator to name an official successor – an understudy, if you will – should they become unable to fulfill their duties for health reasons. This person would have no policy-making power, but would be required to understand the district to the extent that they could vote on its behalf if necessary. And most importantly, they’d have to know the person they’re replacing very, very well.

The president has a successor, and his office has less clout on domestic matters than Congress, collectively speaking. Shouldn’t that chamber be fully occupied at all times? If Giffords had named Mark Kelly her successor, who wouldn’t have wanted him in the room? If, heaven forbid, she had died, he probably would have gone in there, anyway.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) wins the South Carolina primary. In two weeks, everyone will have forgotten this happened, or that it was he who made Wonder Bread’s ride a bit bumpier.

Speaking of Wonder Bread, his plan is to focus the negative side of his campaigning on Gingrich going into the Florida primary. Yes, that’s right. Abandon the “attack the current president so you look more presidential” gimmick after one ultimately meaningless loss. That’s the ticket. Go you, Wonder Bread.

Also, the Iowa Republican Party claims former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) really won the Iowa caucuses, but nobody was paying attention then, either.

SOPA dies. It appears those who were worrying about it online have caught a break for now, but there were a few friends of mine who were still posting messages about the impending doom after lawmakers yanked it. Online news aggregators, people. They’re more valuable than you think.

A study by the Congressional Research Service reports that Congress has the authority to “weigh in” on matters such as the Keystone XL pipeline, as it counts as foreign commerce. I think Congress already did weigh in. Look how well that turned out!

Congress does, however, reach a deal on legislation that would keep the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funded. This fight started in 2007. “God, I am so sick of Congress I could vomit.” (First person to attribute that quote accurately gets a cookie.)

The Obama administration gives religiously affiliated non-profit groups an extra year to comply with a requirement that they cover birth control for female employees. If they need to be sold on this, let me remind you that birth control often prevents abortions.

Canada’s economy is about to transition from “more reliable than everyone else’s” to “booooooooooring.” And that’s why we only get attention when all other countries suck.

As predicted, the honeymoon for Libya’s National Transitional Council draws to a close. Do you ever get the impression that there really are no true democrats in Arab Spring countries who are capable of leadership? Except Mohamed ElBaradei?

To the Occupy movement: You think you have problems? Be glad you’re not a servant in Chile. This is a class system at its worst, short of government-sanctioned beatings.

This week’s fail was brought to you by CNN’s John King. It pains me to have to do this, as I respect him as an anchor, and my respect for the person he transgressed never existed, ever. But, as I mentioned above, nobody is safe from the Fail of the Week. So what did King do that was so heinous? He asked former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) a question about his ex-wife Marianne’s assertion that he asked her for an open marriage during Thursday’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina.

On some level, I can’t completely blame King. The specifics of the accusation (“Yes, but you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn’t care what I do.”) are so hilarious, yet so classically Gingrichian, that anyone would be curious. Maybe he wanted to satisfy his thirst for gossip before moving on to the boring serious stuff (which, really, it wasn’t). And, let’s face it, it’s a miracle that Gingrich could have one woman fighting for him at one time, let alone two, or three at different times. Although the jury is still out on whether or not Callista is a woman or a cyborg with a fully functional, humanlike vag. Seriously, her hair does not move.

Buuuuuuut I digress. The fact is that when it comes to his personal life, nobody trusts Gingrich. Some will play the Christian forgiveness card, but that’s hardly the same thing as a restoration of trust. It’s such an overcooked story that nobody needs to challenge him on it anymore – least of all a CNN anchor hosting a presidential debate. That it was his first question was enough to set the tone of the entire debate to a public airing of other people’s dirty laundry. I should think it’s the moderator’s responsibility to keep the questioning confined to policy matters.

You want a list of things worth challenging Gingrich about? Here’s a small sample: his inability to pass big-ticket conservative items from the Contract with America without then-President Bill Clinton’s triangulation; the true nature of his work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; whether or not he has any experience in governance that might conceivably qualify him to be president. But his sex life? I’m sure legions of really weird, disgusting pornos have been made about it by now. So let’s move on.

A final word on South Carolina. I realize it was never inclined toward former Gov. Mitt “Wonder Bread” Romney (R-MA) but, hell, even former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) is better suited for these people than Gingrich. Must be something in the drinking water.

Ouch: “A majority of independent voters have soured on Obama’s presidency, disapprove of his handling of the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected . . .” Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel. Of course, I was more of a Democrat when he was first elected. As for what he hopes to accomplish, I think “everything he promised to do when Jess was more of a Democrat” sums it up nicely. (Yes, that’s my benchmark.)

Say what you will about the power of party bases and special interests, but independent voters comprise the bloc everyone should be afraid of losing. And that’s not just because there are more of us than either Republicans or Democrats. It’s because those of us who aren’t party-free ideologues are the ones who have seen what works over time and still believe in it to this day. If a president has lost sight of that, he’s lost sight of 40% of his re-election prospects.

STORY #2: No pipe for you!

I could have spent this section discussing the tactical fail committed by congressional Republicans over the Keystone XL pipeline. But for now we’ll focus on how Obama handled it, which is, essentially, not at all. While TransCanada is free to reapply for pipeline approval, he says, they lose this time because he didn’t have enough of a window to review the environmental impact. His ad makers are aiming to make up for it by citing job gains in the green energy sector, which do exist, but mostly on local levels.

There are three possible explanations for Obama’s decision: 1. He really didn’t think 60 days was enough time. 2. He wants to exact political retribution on the Republicans who forced his hand. 3. He would have said no to the pipeline anyway, in order to a) appease environmentalist voters and b) help fossil fuels become less economically appealing. Everyone and their grandma thinks they know what his real reason is. Only he actually does. Expect this to come up again.

STORY #3: Friends in white houses

BREAKING NEWS: People who donate to the President of the United States often benefit from said donations with White House jobs and invitations to high-profile political events! OK, seriously now: Why does everyone write about this as if it’s anything new? It’ll be headline-worthy when a president doesn’t do this sort of thing and people take notice long enough to feel better about politics for a few minutes. I realize that I’m not using this paragraph to do my part in the war on cynicism, but you lost your chance at the one guy who might not do this last week. So don’t complain.

The websites who blacked themselves out in protest of SOPA may have been the most effective in holding it off. A number of its early sponsors have backed off under pressure, which makes its passage in either chamber more questionable than ever. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who authored SOPA, isn’t quite so willing to respect public (and, in some cases, corporate) opinion. He contends that SOPA opponents either don’t know what the legislation targets or refuse to learn.

He doesn’t get it. Very few people oppose his intent – on principle, anyway. (My friends and I use The Pirate Bay for our monthly bad movie nights.) They oppose the vagueness of the legislation, which would use court orders to cut off access to foreign sites “dedicated to theft” of copyrighted material. Without an exact definition of “theft” and “dedicated,” a slick intellectual property lawyer could include video sharing sites and social networks under that umbrella.

This may seem like Clintonian logic at first, but it’s really not difficult to figure out the criteria for “theft” and “dedicated”:

• There must be circumvention, meaning the disseminator of the copyrighted material must have used back channels to get it.
• They must have directly profited (and intended to profit) from the material, and/or directly harmed (or intended to harm) the real owner.
• They must have falsely claimed to be the owner of the material, or to have explicit permission from the owner to provide it.
• Fulfilling the primary purpose of the site must entail doing one or a combination of the above three things.

Now if Smith wants us to believe that his version of SOPA already covers all of these things, he’ll have to reiterate it clearly and loudly enough for everyone to notice, because there would obviously have been a communication breakdown in that case. And that seems pretty unlikely, considering we’re talking about opposition in the millions. I’m left to conclude that he didn’t consider those things and will have to go back to the drawing board if he wants this to be taken seriously. A backlash of this magnitude puts the onus squarely on his shoulders.

For only $8.99, you get a platter with all the T.G.I. Obama’s favorites:

• R&D tax credit extensions!
• Educational investments!
• Regulatory reductions!
• Domestic energy extraction!
• Lower corporate taxes!
• Clean energy subsidies!

Let’s focus on those last two. Lower corporate taxes don’t mean much unless you can guarantee that its beneficiaries will use it for your desired ends, capital investment and hiring in this case. If anyone knows how to do that, please come forward with them. As for the clean energy subsidies . . . many of you will recall that I’d hoped for green tech to be the “market mover” of this decade. Unfortunately, massive amounts of federal subsidies and a generally weak private investment environment don’t contribute much to achieving that objective.

The other ideas are all standard-issue. I seem to recall them being present in stimulus legislation and the American Jobs Act, the latter of which hasn’t even gone anywhere in piecemeal form. No wonder the above article explored his proposals from the “deja vu” angle. Since they would probably win bipartisan support in Congress, he should work a new bill around them and save the more contentious stuff for separate bills. Will that get anywhere? Only about 11% of Americans would say yes or maybe.

After those, which are too fundamental to be noticed any time soon, one or both of these things need to happen: 1. A market mover. By this, I mean some miraculous new invention that will create an industry for itself and cottage industries on the periphery. And that’s something the government can assist when it’s found, but can’t and shouldn’t try to create. 2. Large-scale infrastructure investment. It’s not new, it’s not all that affordable and it’s not permanent, but it’ll do until someone else gets a better idea. Americans want it. Cities need it. It’s easy to measure. It’s literally the best this government can do.

Of course, this would be more effective if “jobs now” was paired with “debt reduction now.” But that would require asking them to do two things right at once.