Joe the plumber? What about Suzie the school teacher with her $750,000 income?

[HamdenRice]

Or Sammy the sanitation worker, with his $875,000 in capital gains tax. What about him, Mr. Obama? Why do you want to tax Sammy's capital gains?

What about Rufus, the roofing worker whose dividend income of $1.2 million will be taxed unfairly unless we continue the Bush tax cuts? Why do you hate Rufus who worked so hard for his corporate profits, Mr. Obama?

And then there's the most heartbreaking tax victim under your plan, Mr. Obama -- Chantoya, the chicken packing plant worker, whose grandmother, bless her heart, is so sick that she is probably going to die within the next year or two, leaving Chantoya with an estate of over $10 million. Unless you extend the Bush estate tax cuts, you're going to leave poor Chantoya with a horrendous death tax bill.

Shame on you Mr. Obamba! Shame!

[The Magistrate]

1. Oh, The Horror, Sir! The Horror! It Is Just Pure Communism! Socialism!

[HamdenRice]

2. Hey Mag! Is it just me? Or was the whole premise absurd?

That McCain's best shot was to convince the audience in tv land that there are millions of plumbers who make a quarter mil a year?

Also, I read Joe's interview on some rw site and he doesn't seem to understand the economics of his own business. He says that if people who make over 250G are taxed, he might not employ as many plumber's helpers or buy as much equipment as his income approaches that number. But plumber's helpers' salaries and equipment purchases are tax deductible, so in fact, a tax on $250G income would give him incentive to keep expanding the business through more employees and equipment.

[Realityhack]

3. Yes but in a misleading way.

People are thinking... 250k gross when we are talking 250k take home.

Big difference. But don't confuse McCain with the facts.

[The Magistrate]

7. Not Just You, Sir

The most solid element of it as a propaganda line is that it is aimed at persons ignorant of basic facts about business income, a population of persons, like Joe the Plumber himself, who know nothing about running a business and will never own or operate one, though they may comfort themselves with fond dreams of someday being in charge and bossing other people around. Republican propagandists on this subject employ a form of 'aspirational marketing', a marketing style which aims to draw people into purchasing something as a means of feeling their social and economic status is higher than it actually is, so that they can avoid the stigmatized feeling of being nearer the bottom rather than the top. In this case, rather than, say, a package of lunch meat with a trim of gold foil and a concocted tale of preparation by artisans in a beautiful mountain valley, as opposed to that Oscar Meyer stuff, what is sold is an idea, and the promise that by identifying with and accepting that idea, you, too, can be part of the over-class which possesses and employs, and not part of the working class which is bossed around and owns, really, nothing. The idea is that you can easily become a member of this over-class, and that the chief obstacle to your doing so is restrictions on its ability to amass profit for itself, and public policies that require it to pay for assistance to people that eases their burdens in their actual present economic and social state. Because accepting this idea allows people to imagine they are themselves a portion of the over-class, they submit to being moved politically in ways that work to its best interests, and against their own best interests, and they do this in exchange for reveling in fantasies of future prosperity and power over others they will never physically enjoy. The dynamic is rather similar to that of a dedicated aficionado of celebrity pornography, imagining himself actually in the embrace of some starlet, whatever the actual situation in which his genitals are experiencing friction may be....

The weakness of it, as a totemic emblem brandished by a candidate for President before an audience of scores of millions, is that basic facts of the situation differ from what McCain imagined them to be. The fact is that Joe the Plumber is a mope, who is dreaming of buying on credit a business which grosses perhaps a quarter million a year, rather than an actual prospective purchaser of a business netting more than a quarter million a year. The spectacle of McCain, grinning like an eager gnome and congratulating Joe on being rich, is an iconic moment of idiocy that deserves to echo in political lore down the years with Dole's 'Democrat wars' and Ford's impromptu liberation of Poland. For Joe is not remotely rich, by any conceivable standard, and even Joe knows that. Joe is effectively a plumber's helper, who cannot be clearing more than thirty thousands or so a year, who does not even own more than a tenth of the house he lives in, or even possess free and clear the automobile he drives. To state so clearly as McCain did the lie he depends on Joe, and millions more, believing, is to tear the elaborate tissue of illusions on which belief in that lie depends. You cannot state a thing like that too starkly; you must sell it by hints and implications, by innuendoes and suggestions, for acceptance of it is wholly dependent on the believer never examining the thing too closely, since it is in fact nonsense, and pretty lame nonsense to boot, well within the capability of even those who allow themselves to be imposed on by it to see through, if it is ever stated clearly. Joe may not know much, but Joe knows damned well he is not rich, not by a long sight.

[Blue_Tires]

6. hey Magistrate...

where is that sig quote from? looks familiar...

[The Magistrate]

10. It Is, Sir, From the Confucian 'Analects'

It is pretty much the core element of his whole system of thought, and could be fairly summarized as 'Call a spade a spade.'

It is slightly altered, with 'people become uneasy' substituted for 'rites and music are not properly performed', since most would not take the signifigance of the latter, which intended to convey disorder in people's minds, but would not likely be read that way by people unfamiliar with this body of thought.

[SidDithers]

4. I don't know if I've ever recc'ed one of your posts before, Hamden...

but this one certainly deserves it. Well said.

Sid

[HamdenRice]

5. Thanks! nt

[ContinentalOp]

8. I'm so pissed at Obama right now.

Here I was, all set to buy this company called Exxon Mobil next year. Now Obama says he's going to eliminate $4 billion in tax breaks for that company so it looks like I won't be able to afford it after all. Thanks a lot Obama. Think of all of those jobs I would have created out of thin air merely by purchasing the company.

[Matariki]

9. ....

:rofl: