On the Heels of Joe the Plumber
Posted on October 16, 2008
Filed Under Economy, Obama, Politics |
Here’s a letter I sent to The Oregonian yesterday:
Trying to convince an infatuated Obama supporter to vote for McCain is like trying to convince a twelve year old she isn’t really in love. So this is for depressed conservatives and the many undecided:
Vote.
Not long ago the headlines were all about four dollar gas. A lot can happen in the next two plus weeks; voters are every bit as volatile this election as the current DOW. Yes, the media are deeply in the tank for Obama, but very few are getting their information solely from The Oregonian or NBC. Fact on Obama’s highly troubling – and legitimately discussed – associations with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, ACORN and the Chicago Machine is easily internet available. Even talented spinners can’t create achievements where none exist. Obama is incapable of keeping his messianic ego or “spread the wealth” tendencies in check, both decided negatives to normal people.
Vote. This election is far, far from over.
Obama can’t help himself. I’m sure his handlers have advised him to keep his socialism under wraps until after the election - people won’t vote socialist even if it’s smooth talking socialist - but I’m sure he thinks his brand of socialism, wherein he gets to decide whose wealth is distributed to whom, is palatable. It’s not, it’s still socialism.
As for me, I’m voting for Joe the Plumber:
UPDATE: And, as noted, Obama can’t keep his suffering condescension in check:
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13 Responses to “On the Heels of Joe the Plumber”
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Joe is a typical republican. Doesn’t pay his bill to live in this country, resents being asked to do so. Owes back taxes, even owes a hospital for unpaid bills. DIshonest, won’t even purchase a license to practice plumbing. All very typically republican.
I wonder how not paying his taxes squares with his support for the military? Does Joe think the military, like the country, runs on AIR?
Conservatives like Joe and Jeff think that if you call it socialism, it gives you cover from criticism that you’re just a selfish deadbeat who wants everything a first-rate country offers without having to pay for it.
Republicans are like the guy who eats out with the group. Eats and drinks more than anyone else then hides in the bathroom until everyone else pays the check. Always the first in line for the goodies handed out by the government then takes his share and that of several others.
Republicans: Bad citizens, bad people.
On your best days cleverness escapes you, Dino. This isn’t one of your best days.
Two things about this episode are exploding: First, Obama’s revealatory “Spread the wealth. It’s good for everyone.” moment, sentiment notoriously antithetical to the American Dream tenets of the normal voter. Even those on the receiving end - excepted the sloven - react viscerally to the notion that “…it’s only fair that successful Joe the Plumber give me some of his wealth, since he’s achieved and I haven’t…”
But even more important is the blatant display of how the left - that would include the media and the nuts on the lefty blogs - deals with problems for The One: They attack Joe the Plumber, who simply asked a question; it was Obama who inadvertantly let the socialist agenda out of the bag.
Many others have said it, because it’s true: More has been investigated re Joe in twenty four hours than has been spent on Ayers or Wright in twelve months. Since defending socialism is a losing proposition, that’s pretty much all the left has…
Didn’t McCain suggest that the government buy up people houses and renegotiate their mortgage at market rates? That leaves the government on the hook for the rest of the underwater home principal. You call that conservatism? I call that socialism, damn near communism.
>Didn’t McCain suggest that the government buy up people houses and renegotiate their mortgage at market rates?
Tu quoque.
I’m as frustrated as any at McCain’s effort to lure independents by acting like a democrat, but his record - something Obama doesn’t have, incidentally - is of fiscal responsibility: low tax, low spend…
Fact check: Plumber Joe’s taxes
McCain has entrepreneurs spooked about tax hikes, but fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama’s plan.
By Stacy Cowley
Last Updated: October 17, 2008: 2:59 PM ET
(CNNMoney.com) — In speech after speech, presidential candidate John McCain hammers on the claim that his rival Barack Obama will raise taxes on many small businesses.
At the debate on Wednesday night, McCain said, “The small businesses that we’re talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now.”
More typically he has said: “What [Obama] hasn’t told you is that he would tax half of the income of small businesses in America,” a line used in La Crosse, Wisc., last week.
Should small business owners fear for their wallets if Obama is elected? Not the vast majority, business and tax experts say.
To make its claim, according to a McCain spokesman, the campaign counts as a small-business owner any taxpayer who files a Schedule C, E or F - the forms used to report gains and losses from business ventures and farms.
Using that definition and citing IRS data, the campaign notes that “56.8% of total small business income is earned by businesses in the top two rates, which Barack Obama has pledged to raise.”
It’s true that Obama has proposed raising taxes on the top two income rates.
But there are three main problems with McCain’s charge.
What is a small business?
First, it relies on a broad definition of what counts as a small business, including everyone who files a Schedule C, E and F.
But most people who file those forms don’t run a business for a living: Those forms are also used to report income from freelance and consulting work, real-estate rentals, and most other non-salary sources.
For example, McCain and Obama both file Schedule C returns, thanks to their book royalties - but they hardly should be considered small business owners.
In 2005, there were 21.5 million Schedule C returns filed, according to the IRS.
A more realistic definition of small businesses turns up far fewer firms. The Small Business Administration estimates that there were 6 million small businesses in 2005, as measured by those with fewer than 500 employees and with staff on the payroll other than the owner.
Who pays?
Second, even using the broad definition of small business that McCain likes, very few owners would see their own taxes rise.
That’s because the lion’s share of taxable income comes from a small number of wealthy businesses. Out of 34.7 million filers with business income on Schedules C, E or F, 479,000 filers fall into the top two brackets, according to an analysis of projected 2009 filings by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The other 34.3 million - or 98.6% - would be unaffected by Obama’s proposed rate hike.
That includes Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, whom McCain invoked nearly two dozen times at the debate Wednesday night to illustrate the plight of the average worker and small business owner.
“Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years … he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes,” McCain said.
In an interview afterward with WTOL, Wurzelbacher acknowledged that he’d still like to eventually buy the plumbing company he works for but that he wouldn’t yet be hit by higher taxes.
“I want to set the record straight: Currently I would not fall into Barack Obama’s $250,000-plus,” he said. “But if I’m lucky in business and taxes don’t go up then maybe I can grow the business and be in that tax bracket - well, let me rephrase it. Hopefully, that tax won’t be there.”
Few owners are that lucky in business. In a member survey conducted late last year, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that only 14% of respondents said they had $200,000 or more in annual income.
As Tax Policy Center fellow Len Berman recently toldFortune Small Business: “Most owners of small businesses have small incomes.”
What gets taxed?
Third, even if you’re one of the rare business owners making enough money to be affected by Obama’s proposed tax increases, you still won’t see a big hike in your tax bill.
McCain’s claim that Obama “will increase taxes on 50% of small business revenue” - the line he used in the second presidential debate - is incorrect because of how income is taxed.
If a business owner falls into the top bracket, that doesn’t mean that all of his or her income is taxed at the highest level.
For example: If a small-business owner makes $210,000 in taxable income, he edges into the 33% bracket, one of the two top tax rates that Obama would like to raise.
But he would pay the higher tax only on the amount that exceeds the cutoff - in 2007, the two top tax rates applied to single filers with income of $160,850 or more and joint filers with income of at least $195,850. As a single filer, this business owner would see his federal taxes increase $1,475 under Obama’s plan, which calls for raising the 33% tax rate to 36%.
“While Obama does favor raising the top two rates, the quote is not true because not all the small business income of those in the top two rates is taxed at the 33% and 35% rates,” said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
The bottom line: McCain’s claim only works by using an overly broad definition of what counts as a “small business” - and even with that definition, fewer than 2% of business owners would be hit by Obama’s proposed rate increase. For those who are affected, the increase would be levied only on a part of their earnings, not all of them.
CNNMoney.com writer Emily Maltby contributed to this report.
First Published: October 16, 2008: 11:43 AM ET
Like most of the anxious brethren, Jon, Cowley deliberately misses the point:
Whether under Obama’s plan 2% or 52% - the numbers are highly disputable - of small businesses will get a tax hike, that fact is Obama will raise taxes. Out of the closet, he now posits that spreading the wealth is a good thing. Again, socialism isn’t a winning strategy.
Incidentally, cutting and pasting anyone can do. Have you ever considered original thought?
I’m as frustrated as any at McCain’s effort to lure independents by acting like a democrat
So either:
A) McCain is a lair and doesn’t want to buy up houses with tax dollars.
or
B) He is inconsistent with his previously stated beliefs and shouldn’t be trusted.
For the record I don’t support either candidate.
What kind of a loser allows a a lien to be placed against his house for a measly $1200 in back taxes? Drives a nice shiny truck too. Probably bought the house with no money down and is behind on that too. Good thing the republicans turned him into the poster boy for selfish, greedy deadbeat republicans. He might actually get some $$$ out of it.
You people sure love certain words. Socialism, terrorist. But I’ll bet you and all your republican friends take what you can from government any and every chance you get. if your parents are deceased, who paid their last medical bills? Medicare, right? Why, that’s SOCIALISM! If you’re like most republicans and your parents required nursing home care, you hid their wealth and put them in a home on Medicaid. That’s wheree 75% of the monoey goes, not to the poor it’s intended for. I know LOTS of republicans who pull that scam.
But I urge you to return republicans to power. You won’t have to worry about paying taxes because you won’t have a income to pay taxes ON.
Republicans: Bad citizens, awful people.
Good grief, Dino. You’re the drunken bore at a party who tells the same bad joke over and over hoping perhaps this time someone will get it.
We get it. It’s just not funny.
Sorry you can’t refute anything that’s been said or defend your political cult of greed, selfishness and fear.
Perhaps shock treatments would rid you of those inhumane instincts.
Turns out the failure to regulate Fannie & Freddie was due to republicans being bought.
AP IMPACT: Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign
WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
Whatsamatta, cat gotcher tongue? No comeback for that PROOF that republicans killed Fannie & Freddie reform?
Are you out getting a $4700 dollar haircut with Sarah Palin? Helping spend $150,000 of DONOR MONEY on clothes? Or perhaps you’re having lunch at her $700 a night hotel in NYC. Such a down-to-earth hockey mom!
Or perhaps you’re helping McCain sell a couple houses so he has money to keep his campaign of lies alive? I guess he ran through that $84 million in TAXPAYER money he got. I call that WELFARE! Smells like SOCIALISM to me! Paying a rich man to run for office? Wow, I’ll bet you’re really steamed about that, aren’t you Jeff?
What happened? Did they repossess your computer?
hahahaha