“Joe the Plumber” gets his 15 minutes…
…And as predicted, he may want to give it back. Read the rather funny Times’ “Caucus” piece about “Joe the Plumber,” star of last night’s debate…Or, rather, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he’s actually not a plumber. But he is an angry Republican who owes back taxes and may not actually pay any extra taxes if he buys the plumbing business he has his eye on.
Oh, and he has a way with words:
Mr. Wurzelbacher told Ms. Couric that his encounter with Mr. Obama was a matter of impulse. “Neighbors were outside asking him questions, and I didn’t think they were asking him tough enough questions,” he said.
He went on, “You know, I’ve always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question,” he said, “for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance.”
He added, “Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
Nice. I wonder how McCain would do under Joe’s questioning. Maybe Walter Brennan?
One of the requirements for an Ohio plumber license, if I recall, is a background check.
…….might there be something in Joe the Plumber’s background that………?
“Sammy Davis Jr.”? Honestly?
I feel kind of sorry for the guy. It seems to me if McCain was going to use him like that, he should have at least tipped the guy off. At least he is in the country legally, but I don’t see how he can keep his job. And the whole thing about buying the plumbing business was a vague idea that he had no real plans about. I saw a story somewhere in which he admitted he will get a tax break under Obama’s plan, but he said some other guy would be hit with an increase. That shows the power of ideology — a Republican who opposes a tax cut that will benefit him and 95 percent of households because it is a TAX INCREASE (on the richest 5 percent).
David Nickol said: ” That shows the power of ideology — a Republican who opposes a tax cut that will benefit him and 95 percent of households because it is a TAX INCREASE (on the richest 5 percent).”
Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Assume, arguendo, that he would benefit from the policy, I would think his opposition is therefore an act of self-sacrifice. Regardless of whether one agrees with his underlying ideology, if it is true that he would receive a pecuniary benefit from this policy and nevertheless would forego that on ideological grounds, I would think that’s an admirable thing. I would think the Grand Inquisitor would not be happy with Mr. Wurzelbacher.
Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Assume, arguendo, that he would benefit from the policy, I would think his opposition is therefore an act of self-sacrifice.
I can say without hesitation that it is a bad thing. It’s not merely his position that he would forego the tax benefit. It’s that he doesn’t want the tax benefit to go to any of the 95 percent of households who will get it. It would be (misguided) self-sacrifice if he agreed to donate his tax benefits to the rich, but he doesn’t want anybody to benefit, except of course the rich.
Of course, if you think it’s a good thing that in the United States the top 10% of the population own 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% control 38%, then you might think he has a case.
My mother, who was very conservative used to say that if you redistributed all the wealth in the country evenly, the same people who have all the money now would soon have it back. I don’t think so, but in any case, as much as some people believe Obama’s plan is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” he’s merely advocating for taxation to be progressive to the degree that it was under Ronald Reagan.
David Nickol said: “…in the United States the top 10% of the population own 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% control 38%,… ”
Interesting. Where are that data from? Do you have a link you could post?
MAT,
That was from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
But for more authoritative information, see a paper Wikipedia links to from the Federal Reserve titled A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001, which says, “In 2001, the division of wealth observed in the SCF attributed about a third each to the wealthiest 1 percent, the next wealthiest 9 percent, and the remaining 90 percent of the population.” That’s not quite as extreme as the figures I cited, but it’s still staggering.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/papers/concentration.2001.10.pdf
I have seen all the information that was dug up about “Joe the Plumber,” but I haven’t seen anybody directly make the point that he was lying to Obama about his personal situation, inventing circumstances that he thought (apparently incorrectly) put him just over the line and into the group of small businessmen who make enough to worry about a tax increase from Obama. The whole conversation with Obama was a fraud.
Here are the facts about small businesses
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aysiUbzAUIZs&refer=us
I can only assume McCain knows this, and yet he persists in excoriating Obama for planning to raise taxes on small businesses.
In reviewing the debate transcript, I just noticed that McCain said, “Fifty percent of small business income taxes are paid by small businesses.” Who pays the other fifty percent??? (I just googled this sentence, and many people caught the error.)
Joe “the plumber” and John the Fibber
A couple of observations -
First – It is a little creepy the way the press and Obama’s supporters are going after this guy.
Second – Who cares if he lied? The point was Obama’s answer. It revealed his redistributive mindset.
David,
He IS proposing to raise taxes on small business – and poor people – and everyone. It is only through some sort of economic hocus pocus that we get this idea that if you raise corporate taxes, and payroll taxes, and eliminate the cap for social security taxes that just “the rich” get hurt. When GM pays a higher tax, it doesn’t just take it out of hide. You and I, and everyone else, including the poor who can afford it least, pay it.
As for your statistics, it is not just a question of how many business owners it hurts, but which ones. The individual making $100,000 operating as a “small business” is not where the damage will be done. The one who make $400,000 and employs 60 or 70 people is. there are millions of such businesses. If that person suddenly is paying an additional $25,000 in taxes – will he hire that next entry level worker? Will he have as much generally to invest in his own business and others? To start new businesses? On top of that, by raising corporate taxes he will increase the cost of doing business generally.
The Obama approach to taxes has been tried, and it has failed again and again. A question I would have loved to hear asked in the debates would be, “Sen Obama, can you name one time in history where tax increases of the size you propose and budgets of the size you propose have ever resulted in economic growth and prosperity?”
Obama’s answer to Joe is important because it shows that his tax plan has nothing to do with increasing revenue or promoting economic growth. It’s about accreting power.
Sean,
Where has the Bush approach to economics gotten us? Why is the median household income $2,010 below what it was in 2000? Why have we had decent economic growth while at the same time working families have been falling behind? Why has the poverty rate been going up? Why are higher tax rates for corporations a problem when two out of three corporations paid no federal taxes from 1988-2005? Why should anyone believe McCain when Republicans who promise smaller government and balanced budgets (Reagan, Bush 43) give us bigger government and record-breaking deficits? Why doesn’t lowering the taxes of 95 percent of working families, who will spend that money, make less sense than lowering the taxes of the top 5 percent?
I blame John McCain for not even contacting Joe the Plumber before using him so extensively on national television. He at least should have warned the guy. Using his story as an example the way McCain did was a virtual guarantee that the press would check out every detail.
I am just curious about this. It is not a rhetorical question. What do you think of McCain’s plan to offer a $2500 individual, $5000 family tax credit and then tax employer-provided health insurance to pay for it? As someone with good health-care coverage, that would certainly raise my taxes. And if I lost my employer-provided insurance, $2500 wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of buying medical coverage.
David,
Why start at 2000? Why not start at 1998-99 when the decline in income started? And oh, by the way, there was a greater decline in household income in the last two years of the Clinton Administration, and the real income of households grew every year the last 4 of Bush. There was, of course this little thing called 9/11 that caused a few problems from 2001-2004. But I suppose we can blame that on Republican policies since they set the charges in the twin towers.
How exactly do you lower taxes on 95% of the people when at least 40% pay no income tax at all?
As for corporate taxes, were it up to me they would all pay 0%, because I know they just pass it on to me. Where do you think they get the money from?
I won’t defend McCain’s proposals – remember, I support him only as the lesser of evils – he is not my Chosen One.
Robert, you’re talking a lot of nonsense. But this quote really got me.
“As for corporate taxes, were it up to me they would all pay 0%, because I know they just pass it on to me. Where do you think they get the money from?”
Have you ever actually worked for a corporation before?