No wonder Joe the Plumber Is worried About Taxes

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

You wouldn't understand until the crows flies to antarctica.

In debate this kind of statement is worthless, and merely suggests that you cannot support your opinions.

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@Brandon9000,

Quote:

In America, we don't pull anyone who succeeds down to our level out of jealousy, by taxing him to death.

Not yet at least.

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@roger,

Quote:

Good. I'm sick and tired of hearing about Joe Six-Pack. As if anyone without a college degree and a six figure income drags his fat ass in the door after work, plops down in front the all sports channel and pops the top on a can of Blue Ribbon.

Agreed

I'm also sick of the use of "The Working Man," for the more enlightened version of "Joe Six Pack," as if no one making six figures or more actually works for their money.

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@Rockhead,

Rockhead wrote:

I'd like some Real facts this time as well Foxfyre...

You are blowing some bad smoke.

Didn't take long. Here's the first source that came up on the Google list:

Quote:

THE TAXPAYING MINORITY
The U.S. income tax system is so bad and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40 percent of the country's households pay no income taxes at all, says Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, and president of Ari Fleischer Communications.

Our tax system comes up short in a lot of areas; however, the one place where it does excel is at redistributing income, says Fleischer:

According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40 percent) pay 99.1 percent of all income taxes.

Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10 percent, paid 70.8 percent of all income taxes.

In other words, 10 percent pay 7 out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

And those super-rich one percenters? Their share of the nation's income has risen, but their tax burden has risen even faster:

In 1979, affluent individuals made 9.3 percent of the nation's income and they paid 18.3 percent of the country's income tax.

In 2004, they made 16.3 percent of the nation's income but their share of the income tax burden leaped to 36.7 percent.

As for the middle class they make 13.9 percent of the nation's income and their share of the nation's income tax dropped to 4.7 percent.

In 1979, they made 15.8 percent of the nation's income and paid 10.7 percent of the nation's income tax.

Instead of raising taxes and punishing the successful by making them pay even more, says Fleischer, it's time to junk the current system and start anew with a code that fosters economic growth for all, not increased redistribution of income for some.

Source: Ari Fleischer, "The Taxpaying Minority," Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2007.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14434

There's lots and lots more.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or anybody with more than a fifth grade education to figure out that trying to get the top 5% of wage earners to pick up a the slack for a tax cut for the bottom 95%--is not only reads like a huge fairy tale. but it is guaranteed to drive that 5% elsewhere with their money. Fred Thompson used the best metaphor. Obama has to get it from somewhere else among the bottom 95% and that means taxing small business or finding the money in other places, but in the end we pay it. So what he (Obama) is saying is that you can take water out of one side of the pail without affecting the other side. It doesn't work like that.

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Just in case you didn't like my previous source, here's another:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal%20Facts/Countdown2/2-Figure-2(1).jpg

Quote:

Source: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Foundation.

For example, before accounting for refundable tax credits, the bottom 20 percent taxpayers shouldered 0.2 percent of the income tax burden while the top 20 percent of taxpayers paid roughly 79 percent. After receiving more than $28 billion in refundable credits, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers is found to receive more than they pay, while the burden on the top 20 percent increased to nearly 84 percent. The chart also shows that the refundable credits reduce the tax burden for the second quintile to almost zero while increasing the tax burden for the third and fourth quintiles"though less dramatically than for the top income group.

Broadly speaking, the 42.5 million non-payers are:

Low-income: 97 percent earn less than $40,000 annually;
Young: 36 percent are younger than age 25 and 56 percent are younger than age 35;
Women and Unmarried: 54 percent are single women or female-headed households;
Part-Time Workers: 42 percent work part-time while just 20 percent work full-time but less than 50 weeks a year;
Benefit from Tax Credits: 34 percent claim the EITC while 50 percent claim the child credit.
In addition to these non-paying filers, roughly 15 million individuals and families earned some income in 2004 but not enough to be required to file a tax return. When these non-filers are added to the non-payers, they add up to 57.5 million income-earning households (sometimes referred to as tax units) who paid no income taxes last year.

Even 57.5 million is not the actual number of people because one tax return often represents several people. When all of the dependents of these income-producing households are counted, roughly 120 million Americans"40 percent of the U.S. population"are outside of the federal income tax system.

While some may applaud the fact that millions of low- and middle-income families pay no income taxes, there is a threat to the fabric of our democracy when so many Americans are not only disconnected from the costs of government but are net consumers of government benefits. The conditions are ripe for social conflict if these voters begin to demand more government benefits because they know others will bear the costs.

The Tax Foundation's 2005 Annual Survey of U.S. Attitudes on Tax and Wealth found that 59 percent of American adults said it is unfair that 42.5 million Americans pay no federal income taxes after deductions and credits, and that everyone should be required to pay some minimum amount to fund government.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1111.html

Now consider that if it is unhealthy for so many Americans to already be on the public dole with government paid for by an ever smaller number of the wealthier Americans, how much more so will it be for an even fewer number of higher earning Americans to be the ones who shoulder the burden?

The last time the government seriously tried to soak the rich was during Bush 41's term and was included in the deal he brokered with Congress when he broke his no new taxes pledge. Heavy taxes were imposed on rich man's toys--their yachts and private planes and high value jewelry. The result? The American private boat building and private airplane building industry was decimated at the cost of many tens of thousands of jobs, some which have never been re-created, and a huge chunk of our high value jewelry industry fled to places like Grand Cayman and elsewhere.

You cannot punish the rich for their prosperity without hurting the poor. If Obama has his way with his proposed tax policy, we will experience the extremely painful process of him learning that the hard way. Unfortunately he and Michelle made more than 4 million last year. They don't care. The rest of us will feel it, however.

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I am amazed that anyone is tolerant of the smear campaign and personal attacks being leveled against Joe The Plumber, and I am disgusted with those who join in.

The man was playing football on the front lawn of his home when the Obama entourage came down his street. Clearly Obama was looking for interaction with Ohio voters and soliciting their questions.

Joe asked his question and Obama answered it.

Do we know consider it acceptable to demean and denigrate those who ask our favorite politicians questions if the answer creates any sort of a negative impression?

It is utterly immaterial what Joe's occupational status or tax situation might be. He is not running for president. He is neither an associate of nor a surrogate for John McCain, or, despite ludicrous suggestions otherwise, is he an operative of McCain's campaign. He asked a reasonable question and Obama answered it without any of the sort of the rancor so many of his followers have directed toward the questioner.

That so many of his followers have chosen to attack the questioner rather than defend the answer is indicative of the sort of brutal and bullying ideological fever that A2K liberal grandees such as blatham and nimh constantly bemoan.

The extent of that fever is demonstrated by the fact that the majority of them agree with his answer. Perhaps we might understand how they would feel the need to lash out at the innocent who elicited a self-incriminating response from their hero, but at the same time as they castigate Joe, they insist there was nothing wrong with what Obama said.

His crime, it appears, was asking a question which engendered a response that the opposition felt was of political advantage to them.

That the MSM are leading the hounds that are breathing down his neck is frightening.

What can we look forward to when Obama takes office?

Right here on A2K we see the same behavior.

Brandon makes a perfectly reasonable, albeit unpopular, contention and he is met with a barrage of ad hominem attacks including this one

Quote:

You guys are trying to convince someone who fails to understand all the evidence out there to see the facts and figures. Why feed this troll?

So now "troll" is defined as someone who refuses to believe what you believe?

He had the temerity to enter what was supposed to be a liberal daisy-chain of put-downs and insults about Joe and actually suggest that Obama's answer was not something we should want for this country.

The Troll!

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And as for the substance of what amounts to the defense of the answer, there is this:

Quote:

Leveling the playing field is what many of the DEMS (including Obamas advisors) have always proposed.

You don't level the playing field by adjusting the outcome of the game.

The real issue is whether or not the people at the low end of the economic ladder have the same opportunities to succeed as those at the top. If it can be convincingly shown that they do not, we need to take steps to level the playing field.

While we all are equal under the law, we are not all equal in terms of the value be bring to society and it is our value to society (whether substantive or frivolous) which should determine the measure of our rewards.

While the flag-man at a construction site should have the same legal rights as the CEO of the construction company for which he works, and while, in some sense, he has the same intrinsic value as a human being as does the CEO, the chasm between their economic contributions is as vast as that which is likely to exist between their compensation levels.

Attempting to artificially reduce this economic imbalance is unfair and, ultimately detrimental to the health of the national economy.

Putting aside the personal situation of

Quote:

Joe

, Obama's response to his question reveals a policy based on inequity, rather than equity.

If and when Joe starts his plumbing business, "the people behind him" will not deserve any more of Joe's profits than he chooses to provide them.

First of all it will be Joe, and not his employees who are taking the risk of losing all they own.

Secondly, Joe's employees don't have their current jobs unless Joe is taking the risk.

Finally, if Joe doesn't fairly reward his employees they will leave for more rewarding jobs and Joe's business will tank and he will lose his shirt.

The notion that the clerk in Joe's office who sends bills to his customers deserves anything but a fraction of what Joe deserves is ridiculous.

The notion that the most highly skilled employee Joe has deserves what Joe makes is equally ridiculous.

There are plenty of people who are more skilled and know more about the business than their specific Joe, but they are employees, not employers. If they think they can do a better job than their Joe they need only take on the risk Joe has assumed.

It is at best fuzzy headed idealism and at worst cynical politics that advances the notion that the employees should have as much as the employers.

Obama and his fellow Democrats are buying votes with their promises of increasing the taxes on employers so as to financially enhance their employees.

If the American Empire is truly in decline, as so many liberal scholars would have us believe, its demise will be hastened and assured by the lofty, but false promise of total equality.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

If we had eggs, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had bacon.

I laughed hard enough, I might have woke my roommates.

T
K
O

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@Foxfyre,

foxfire :

a/t to the graph 40 % of taxpaying americans earn LESS than $25,757 - if i read it correctly .
how much income tax would you suggest they pay - either as % of income or $ amount ?
from your posts i am inferring that you believe they should pay more - or am i wrong ?
hbg

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Finn writes

Quote:

I am amazed that anyone is tolerant of the smear campaign and personal attacks being leveled against Joe The Plumber, and I am disgusted with those who join in.

How about the smear campaign the media has launched against Cindy McCain? The NYT actually instigated an email campaign trying to get her daughter's friends to dig up or reveal any dirt they could find about Cindy. This is journalistic integrity? What or who is being served by this kind of thing?

That an American citizen, one that was not protesting or seeking out the candidate, cannot ask a simple and non-belligerant question of a political candidate without a media storm using the most horrendous tactics to embarrass and/or discredit and/or destroy that citizen is downright scary.

Michelle Obama said that for the first time she is proud of her country.

Well, for the first time in my entire life, I am truly afraid for my country.

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@Foxfyre,

be afraid, be very afraid. You will be given a prayer mat, burka, and be assigned to a re education camp within weeks of election.

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@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

foxfire :

a/t to the graph 40 % of taxpaying americans earn LESS than $25,757 - if i read it correctly .
how much income tax would you suggest they pay - either as % of income or $ amount ?
from your posts i am inferring that you believe they should pay more - or am i wrong ?
hbg

In the days that I earned less than $5,000/year, I paid some income tax. In the days that my husband and I earned far less than that $25,757 together, we paid income taxes. The taxes were not oppressive and no matter how modest our means, we had the pride and dignity of knowing that we were tax payers who were investing in our country and had a valid stake in it. The result was that we didn't look for elected leaders who bought votes with promises of all they would do for us personally. We looked for elected leaders who were pro growth, pro business, pro individual prosperity, pro human initiative. The idea of the government 'spreading the wealth around' would have been a repugnant idea then. And it is now.

And there is no way that anyone can convince me that it is a good thing to give the government power to confiscate wealth from Citizen A who lawfully earned it and give it to Citizen B who didn't. A government given that kind of power is a government that can do any damn thng it wants to anybody.

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what Obama really said to "Joe the plummers apprentice"

Quote:

My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s going be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody, and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

His staement was, like his others, a quote mining job by Grampa's team.

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Fox- That same $5000 or $25,000 doesn't go as far today. You are comparing paying taxes on amounts somewhat similar to todays tax requirements. If money doubles every ten years, what are you talking about? 2 decades ago? 3 decades? 4?

If someone making $10,000 today has to pay taxes, they would just get it back in some form of assistance from the government, and Republicans already complain about the number of people on the government teet... What do you want? Are they to live on $10,000 with no assistance and just starve or die from lack of care?

Taxes are ALWAYS a redistribution of wealth. Even a flat tax would mean the wealthier are paying more taxes because the percentage is applied to a higher dollar amount. So, a 10% flat rate tax will leave a $10,000 income person paying $1,000 and a $100,000 income person paying $10,000. Is that fair? Isn't that redistribution of wealth. The only way to make it NOT a redistribution would be to make everyone pay the exact same amount no matter income level.

I haven't flown in over 16 years, but part of my tax money goes to maintaining and running the airport/air control/ airport security and other related government agencies. The wealthy are more likely to fly more and make more use of such government agencies and they should pay more taxes to offset those that don't use it. The same can be applied to any number of government services that the wealthy make use of and that the poor do not such as FDIC, SEC, use of Port Authority to import/export and increase their own wealth, and on and on.

But, all we hear from the Republicans is that there are people that suck money from the wealthy by being on food stamps, not having health insurance and running up healthcare costs, etc.

The wealthy will always pay more taxes. Republicans try to sell that as redistribution of wealth and a hinderance to living the American Dream as if it stops people from starting their own business. Nonsense!

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As I have said at every opportunity: Give free money to the rich, it's good business, investing in our future; give free money to the poor, it's welfare.

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@squinney,

Squinney, I'm not interested in demonizing anybody here. I am not complaining about those taxes that are necessary to build infrastruture shared by the whole. I never have. I think every American should have a stake in that.

I am not complaining about those who avail themselves of government services when they have their backs to the wall.

What I am talking about is incomes that really didn't stretch to the end of a whole week. I'm talking about going through drawers and pockets hunting for just enough spare change to buy milk for the baby before payday. But we nevertheless paid some income taxes and that is the way it should have been. Nobody forced us to marry young or start a family right away or choose the lines of work we chose. But neither did we become dependent on the government to save us from the consequences of the choices we made and we did what we had to do to move ourselves out of the ranks of the working poor. We were allowed the dignity of knowing that we were contributors to the common good, not a drain on it. It was good for us.

That is the kind of spirit that is crushed when some people are told they aren't expected to contribute to the common good and the government will force others to pick up the slack as if that is the way the world is supposed to be.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

That is the kind of spirit that is crushed when some people are told they aren't expected to contribute to the common good and the government will pick up the slack.

Or alternatively, when the rich suck the majority of wealth out of the society for their own personal use and the working stiffs realize at some point that no matter how hard they work they are never going to be economically reward. For a decade the American GDP per capita grew, NONE of the benefits went to the middle or lower classes.

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@hawkeye10,

The rich don't do that though. Nobody forces you to work for a big corporation where the CEO gets those gazillion dollar golden parachutes, but if you make a good living there, what difference does it make to you who is getting rich? If you want that kind of wealth, start your own business and build it up until you're making the mega bucks. I know lots of folks right here in my town who did just that starting out by themselves, adding employees along as they grew and prospered, and one day they can afford the big mansion on the hill and a life of luxury. Meanwhile they allowed an awful lot of folks to earn a living along the way. Their motive is not what is important here, but rather the net effect of what they do.

Take that wealth away from the rich and you strip away the monies that now go to provide jobs for the rest of us, you eliminate the contributions, grants, and foundations that fund the museums and new hospital wings and support the arts, that invest in business that allows our 401Ks and IRAs to grow, that provides the capital in banks for the rest of us to borrow and grow our own fortunes, that provide the funding for research and development that will eventually prosper us all.

Should a CEO be allowed to abscond with the retirement funds, etc. of the employees? Of course not and I am all for good laws to prevent that kind of thing. A few dishonest bad eggs does not translate to the entire process of acquiring wealth being corrupt.

But penalize the rich for their success and prosperity? You can despise them if you are into class envy. But try to punish the rich because you don't think they deserve to have so much and you will invariably hurt the poor. That kind of thinking is self defeating and destructive.

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@Foxfyre,

Fox- The huge majority of those that you consider to be not " expected to contribute to the common good" and whom will cause the government to "force others to pick up the slack" are the firefighters, teachers, social service workers, child advocates and others that dollar for dollar of what they earn contribute a million times more than any golden parachute CEO. Income and taxes on that income is far from a fair measure of what one contributes to society. Since we couldn't possibly agree on what one is worth based on contributions to society, we have a tax system that attempts somewhat (not perfectly by far) balance that out.

You might consider that the person serving you your Starbucks tomorrow morning is working full time, 52 weeks of the year for under $14,000 a year. Does that person contribute less because they don't end up paying any taxes or are they a required part of the system that allows the person that started Starbucks and other CEO's to be millionaires?

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@Foxfyre,

class escape up is no where as easy as you make it out to be. In order to move up a class almost always a prerequisite is a good education. Those in the lower classes tend to live in like areas, thus there is not as much support for the schools as in upper class areas. More importantly, the importance of education is learned at home, and supported at home. Lower class parents only know what the have learned in life, and the importance of education tends to be something that has not been learned (partly why they are not in a better class). If they do know about education they still are likely to be working two jobs to support their family on their low wages thus are not around much to educate their kids on the importance of education.

After the education has been gotten what become most important is the suitability of ones social network to help land a position. Those who have come up from the bottom tend not to have a social network that will help them find the employment that will launch them towards economic reward.

Some individuals do the work, and do get lucky, thus are able to move up from the class that they grew up in, but this is fairly rare. It is getting more rare because it was once possible to be economically successful without a good formal education, and then the next generation would get a good education and would be likely to be able to maintain the elevated class status. Now however, the certified education is almost mandatory, thus lower class families are increasingly locked in.

If you want to investigate, look at the research on what has happened when lower class blacks were let into good universities over the last 20 years on the charity philosophy(known as student mix engineering). They almost always do poorly, they have been academically not ready for the challenge and they have been psychologically not ready for the challenge. They usually don't take a degree, and even when the do they do poorly in the job market. You can't make them drink the water, and they don't know how important the water is to their future. The urge to drink, to do whatever it takes to get into a position to be successful in life, is instilled (or not) by class dynamics.

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No wonder Joe the Plumber Is worried About Taxes

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