President Obama has repeatedly talked about imposing a “Warren Buffet Rule” for income taxes, which refers to the outrage he is said to feel that his wealthy supporter pays a lower income tax percentage than his secretary. Drilling down into the recently passed “Fiscal Cliff” bill that Mr. Obama signed into law reveals some curious aspects that don’t seem to be consistent with that position.

An article by Brad Plumer of the Washington Post gives a good start to understanding how much our elected leaders care about fair taxation. Section 322 provides a $9 billion tax break to manufacturers such as General Electric and big banks for what is called “active financing.” That section allows deferring U.S. taxes on overseas income. I’m not against helping U.S. companies be competitive in the global market. However, I recall Mitt Romney was chastised by the media for not pledging to end the provision which President Obama has now quietly signed it into law.

There are other aspects of the law that are even more curious. “Carried interest,” which is the share of profits paid to private equity and hedge fund investment managers are not taxed at the same rates as salaries. The new law will allow those payments to be taxed at a top rate of 20% for individuals earning over $400,000 or $450,000 for joint returns. If that one doesn’t bother you, how about a100 % exclusion on gains from qualified small business (QSB) stock held for at least five years. How many middle class Americans will benefit from that or have even ever heard of it?

Section 328 extends tax-exempt financing for the area around the former World Trade Center in New York that was intended to encourage reconstruction. The bonds financed the new Goldman Sachs headquarters and luxury apartments. There is a tax break for NASCAR that was worth a piddling $43 million the past two years that has been extended another year to allow “…NASCAR to compete on a level playing field with other theme parks.” Hollywood was given a better deal by renewal of “special expensing rules for certain film and television productions” worth about $75 million for the year. For a President who dislikes use of coal as an energy source it is curious that section 406 of the bill he signed into law subsidizes “…coal produced on Native American lands at about $2 per ton.

There is at least one more aspect of the new law that is inconsistent with what Mr. Obama has continually proposed. Even billionaires will continue to pay the same tax rates for the first $400,000 in individual earnings that were in the so-called “Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Apparently crowds of Obama supporters were astonished that their paychecks will have two percent less after the holiday on individual “contributions” was allowed to expire “when the fiscal cliff was avoided.”