Joe the Plumber
To really understand Republican values, all you need to do is look at the 26 references to Joe the Plumber by John McCain during the last debate. McCain shed tears of anguish for the plight of this individual, who was concerned that a plumbing business that he wanted to purchase would see its taxes rise under Obama’s tax plan as its income would exceed $250,000. McCain will spare no one in order to make sure that the Republican ‘average man’ gets his due. He becomes visibly upset at the redistribution of wealth from a plumbing entrepreneur to people making less than $250K.
What doesn’t upset him at all is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts.
Approximately half of the $364 billion Bush tax cut over its ten year period, which McCain at first opposed but now has flip flopped to support completely, is going to the top one percent of Americans, those with incomes of $350,000 a year or more. Some 65 percent will go to the top ten percent. The bottom 80 percent of the population, in income terms, gets less than 10 percent of the tax break.
Somehow in the McCain/Bush logic, this is not a redistribution of wealth.
But that is not the whole story. It turns out that once again the McCain team did not fully understand what it was doing. Joe the Plumber, according to his state’s standards is not a licensed plumber and makes nowhere near $250,000 and so would receive a tax cut under Obama’s tax plan. He also owes over one thousand dollars in unpaid taxes. Since Sarah Palin believes paying taxes is not patriotic, I guess she also considers Joe a Republican hero.
But these facts don’t fit the accusation that McCain hopes will assist in getting him elected so they are ignored. His campaign continues to accuse and imply that Obama will raise taxes on everyone, despite Obama’s claim that he will only raise taxes on incomes greater than $250 thousand. Just like Bush, he uses words to further his beliefs regardless of the underlying truth, and by repeating them ad nauseum, prays they will be accepted.
The tax debate is based on falsity. If McCain argues that his and Bush’s policy is the old GOP standby of trickledown economics, that is position about which people can agree or disagree. But there is no mention of that economic strategy. Rather there are false and misleading assertions about his opponent and little honesty about his own positions.
What doesn’t upset him at all is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts.
Approximately half of the $364 billion Bush tax cut over its ten year period, which McCain at first opposed but now has flip flopped to support completely, is going to the top one percent of Americans, those with incomes of $350,000 a year or more. Some 65 percent will go to the top ten percent. The bottom 80 percent of the population, in income terms, gets less than 10 percent of the tax break.
Somehow in the McCain/Bush logic, this is not a redistribution of wealth.
But that is not the whole story. It turns out that once again the McCain team did not fully understand what it was doing. Joe the Plumber, according to his state’s standards is not a licensed plumber and makes nowhere near $250,000 and so would receive a tax cut under Obama’s tax plan. He also owes over one thousand dollars in unpaid taxes. Since Sarah Palin believes paying taxes is not patriotic, I guess she also considers Joe a Republican hero.
But these facts don’t fit the accusation that McCain hopes will assist in getting him elected so they are ignored. His campaign continues to accuse and imply that Obama will raise taxes on everyone, despite Obama’s claim that he will only raise taxes on incomes greater than $250 thousand. Just like Bush, he uses words to further his beliefs regardless of the underlying truth, and by repeating them ad nauseum, prays they will be accepted.
The tax debate is based on falsity. If McCain argues that his and Bush’s policy is the old GOP standby of trickledown economics, that is position about which people can agree or disagree. But there is no mention of that economic strategy. Rather there are false and misleading assertions about his opponent and little honesty about his own positions.
posted by John Weiss at 3:51 PM
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