Joe the Plumber

[LL2]

This guy is going to determine the election. I was hearing on the radio that he is being interviewed by all the networks. I thought it was smart of McCain to use Joe as an example of how Obama's economic plan is going to hurt the economy, small business, and job growth. I heard he hasn't decided who he is going to vote for yet, but he is quite the celebrity now.

[Zool]

This guy is a Maverick, and this guy is a terrorist




and this guy is going to decide the election?

[LL2]

I think Joe the Plumber doesn't want to say publicly who he is voting for, but I think the two sentences below give an indication of which way he is leaning.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/16/joe.plumber/index.html

Although Wurzelbacher wouldn't say who he is voting for, he did say that Obama's tax plan doesn't sit well with him.

"Redistributing the wealth, as far as my hard work, that upsets me," he said. "That's not right. That's not American."

[sheepshead]

I think Joe the Plumber doesn't want to say publicly who he is voting for, but I think the two sentences below give an indication of which way he is leaning.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/16/joe.plumber/index.html

Although Wurzelbacher wouldn't say who he is voting for, he did say that Obama's tax plan doesn't sit well with him.

"Redistributing the wealth, as far as my hard work, that upsets me," he said. "That's not right. That's not American."

What really amazes me is Barry slamming the Bush administration for the economy, yet he has $100 gajillion in his programs for the next few years. Pandering and typical liberal election year crap. He has no real answers on healthcare, just problems and some "magic wand"

[mraynrand]

I was talking with 'Joe the Plumber' yesterday. See my plumber runs a business with about 6 guys. he brings in about 1.5 million/year and takes home about 80-90K himself. He says if his taxes go up, he will 1) increase prices, and 2) lay off his newest guy (who earns about 25K as an apprentice). All I have to say, is that for the 33% of you who currently pay zero income tax and will get the 500 to 1000 dollar check from Joe the Plumber via Barack Extortion, spend that money wisely, it won't go as far and will probably have to last you until at least 2011, since you will likely lose your job. Thanks Barack!

[MadScientist]

I was talking with 'Joe the Plumber' yesterday. See my plumber runs a business with about 6 guys. he brings in about 1.5 million/year and takes home about 80-90K himself. He says if his taxes go up, he will 1) increase prices, and 2) lay off his newest guy (who earns about 25K as an apprentice). All I have to say, is that for the 33% of you who currently pay zero income tax and will get the 500 to 1000 dollar check from Joe the Plumber via Barack Extortion, spend that money wisely, it won't go as far and will probably have to last you until at least 2011, since you will likely lose your job. Thanks Barack!

Did you ask what his profits were? Without that critical piece of information, it is impossible to calculate what the change will actually be. The 1.5 M income is irrelevant. His personal taxes will go down, FICA will be unchanged. As a small business he will get a $500 tax credit per employee, plus additional tax credits if he provides health benefits.

Your doom and gloom economic fear-mongering is just bullshit.

[mraynrand]

I was talking with 'Joe the Plumber' yesterday. See my plumber runs a business with about 6 guys. he brings in about 1.5 million/year and takes home about 80-90K himself. He says if his taxes go up, he will 1) increase prices, and 2) lay off his newest guy (who earns about 25K as an apprentice). All I have to say, is that for the 33% of you who currently pay zero income tax and will get the 500 to 1000 dollar check from Joe the Plumber via Barack Extortion, spend that money wisely, it won't go as far and will probably have to last you until at least 2011, since you will likely lose your job. Thanks Barack!

Did you ask what his profits were? Without that critical piece of information, it is impossible to calculate what the change will actually be. The 1.5 M income is irrelevant. His personal taxes will go down, FICA will be unchanged. As a small business he will get a $500 tax credit per employee, plus additional tax credits if he provides health benefits.

Your doom and gloom economic fear-mongering is just bullshit.

Ooo, 2.5K tax credit for 5 employees. No health bennies. His personal tax relief of 2K won't do shit for his business taxes, which will increase by about 15K-25K under Obama, depending on his profit margin. Not doom and gloom, just reality. He will increase prices and lay off one worker.

[retailguy]

Your doom and gloom economic fear-mongering is just bullshit.

Well, you got the quote right, MadScientist, but you attributed it to the wrong candidate. This voter remembers a guy by the name of Bill Clinton very well, and I can still see him sitting at his desk in the oval office, speaking to the minions saying how he had "tried as hard as he could" to cut taxes but he just couldn't keep that promise. Then, he passed the largest tax increase in history, affecting ALL incomes over $30k a year.

Baracks promise to lower taxes is bullshit. Just wait. I will remind you of this....

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10022008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/democrats__taxes_and_phony_facts_131758.htm

DEMOCRATS, TAXES AND PHONY 'FACTS'
By L. BRENT BOZELL III
Obama: His tax-cut numbers flunk basic math test.
Posted: 3:50 am October 2, 2008

MEDIA "correction" squads are insisting that John McCain can't say Barack Obama will raise taxes, no matter how much that announcing Democrats will raise taxes is like announcing the sun will rise.

In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle suggested Bill Clinton would raise taxes on the middle class - that everyone making over $36,000 could face a tax hike. Media "experts" accused the him of mangling "facts." Clinton was elected - and passed the largest tax increase in US history, right down to the middle class.

"It was Quayle who repeatedly twisted and misstated the facts," CNN reporter Brooks Jackson pronounced after the vice-presidential debate. On ABC, Jeff Green-field proclaimed: "Independent examination of this charge by, for example, press organizations, has found it, to say the least, misleading."

Cut to Feb. 18, 1993, when USA Today admitted: "Looks like Dan Quayle was right. Last year's vice-presidential debate . . . produced an accurate prediction from Quayle about the Clinton budget plan . . . The final plan, according to Clinton officials, will hit those making $30,000 and above."

Predictions about what a politician will do are predictions, not facts. Obviously, some predictions can be wilder - but predicting a massive tax hike under Democrats doesn't qualify as wild.

This goes not just for debates but also for commercials. In a fall '92 TV ad, the Bush-Quayle campaign used its estimates of how much Clinton would raise taxes, and all the networks leaped on it like starving men on a crust of bread.

NBC's Lisa Myers said "facts" were not on the GOP's side: "President Bush's new ad portrays Bill Clinton as a big taxer and a danger to the middle class . . . That's misleading. In fact, Clinton has proposed cutting taxes to the sort of people in this ad." In 20-20 hindsight, the fact is that Lisa Myers ended up with egg on her face.

In 2008, reporters and columnists touting Obama are repeatedly citing numbers by something called the Tax Policy Center. You'll never hear that this is a project operated by two liberal-Democrat think tanks. The figures suggest Obama will actually cut middle-class taxes more than John McCain. That, of course, assumes that President Obama will follow his plan to the letter, and that a newly elected liberal House and Senate will rubber-stamp his alleged tax cut for "95 percent" of Americans.

That, by the way, is a serious math error. How is it possible to cut 95 percent of Americans' taxes when the Tax Foundation reports that 40 percent of Americans don't pay any income tax? (This math apparently is too sophisticated for the guardians of "fact," who are nowhere to be found.)

When Democrats claim they'll be more generous in tax-cutting, does anyone believe a liberal-dominated Washington is going to do less taxing and spending than the Bush administration?

There's nothing wrong with the media suggesting that the Republican candidate is refusing to accept the genuineness of the Democratic candidate's proposal. But if they suggest McCain is lying or misleading voters, they're in danger of walking off yet another cliff of credibility if President Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi get to cook their own ever-expanding federal budget pie.

[arcilite]

I dont think arguing over candidates policies on an internet forum is going to change anyones mind who they will vote for.


With that said, I'm voting for Joe the plumber.

[mmmdk]

Unless America changes their ways; it'll be a steady, probably slow though, downward spiral towards financial mediocrity.

You owe money, dudes, time to pay!

[mraynrand]

I dont think arguing over candidates policies on an internet forum is going to change anyones mind who they will vote for.


With that said, I'm voting for Joe the plumber.

I agree with you. But seeing the counter arguments actually helps when talking to people you can actually influence. In talking to people, it's amazing how many are completely uninformed about the candidates. a snippet here and there is all they know. Someone told me yesterday that McCain supporters all want to kill Obama, because of what Palin said at a rally. But that story was total bulshit.

[mmmdk]

I dont think arguing over candidates policies on an internet forum is going to change anyones mind who they will vote for.


With that said, I'm voting for Joe the plumber.

Good one!

[texaspackerbacker]

I was talking with 'Joe the Plumber' yesterday. See my plumber runs a business with about 6 guys. he brings in about 1.5 million/year and takes home about 80-90K himself. He says if his taxes go up, he will 1) increase prices, and 2) lay off his newest guy (who earns about 25K as an apprentice). All I have to say, is that for the 33% of you who currently pay zero income tax and will get the 500 to 1000 dollar check from Joe the Plumber via Barack Extortion, spend that money wisely, it won't go as far and will probably have to last you until at least 2011, since you will likely lose your job. Thanks Barack!

Did you ask what his profits were? Without that critical piece of information, it is impossible to calculate what the change will actually be. The 1.5 M income is irrelevant. His personal taxes will go down, FICA will be unchanged. As a small business he will get a $500 tax credit per employee, plus additional tax credits if he provides health benefits.

Your doom and gloom economic fear-mongering is just bullshit.

I think the line, "takes home about 80-90K", tells you about his profit.

I was pissed off at McCain for several reasons during the debate. One of them was the repeated mentioning of Ol' Joe. It seemed to me that he was just feeding Obama's highly effective "class warfare" tactic.

Now, I don't know. It seems that a lot of people--maybe a lot of undecided people are responding to McCain's "Joe the Plumber" thing. How screwed up is that?

If McCain makes a comeback and spares America the disaster of an Obama presidency, I will certainly be thankful--even if it does reflect the awfully skewed perspective of the electorate as a result of a lot of people buying into the bogus crap of the leftist mainstream media propaganda machine. But it's still a damned shame that people can't prioritize and realize that terrorist hits are the REAL threat to America, INCLUDING the economic consequence of those hits--and that Obama is horrendously MORE likely to allow such terrorist hits. Why? Because he has opposed literally everything that has thus far prevented those terrorist hits since 9/11.

Like in football, there is no bad win ........ but some are a whole lot more satisfying than others.

[mraynrand]

Tex, the third debate was supposed to focus on economics, and in the current climate, if you try to drag the debate off that topic and into terrorism and the wars, you would look tone deaf or out of touch. The economic upheaval is dominating the news. McCain has to address it. No choice really in this one. Thems are the breaks.

[texaspackerbacker]

Tex, the third debate was supposed to focus on economics, and in the current climate, if you try to drag the debate off that topic and into terrorism and the wars, you would look tone deaf or out of touch. The economic upheaval is dominating the news. McCain has to address it. No choice really in this one. Thems are the breaks.

I would suggest that the root of the whole current economic situation--I refuse to call it a crisis--is 9/11.

I further suggest that the absolute MOST SERIOUS THREAT--even if the topic is the economy--is new terrorist attacks. Aside from all the other unthinkable consequences of the terrorist enemy taking out one or more of our cities with nuclear, biochem, or radiological weapons, the effect on our economy would be devastating--geometrically worse than 9/11. Even an outbreak of low level things--bombings in malls or other public places--would set off a malaise that would drag down the economy.

This is NOT far-fetched. It is the natural consequence of events that really COULD happen, and which would be infinitely MORE LIKELY if Obama is elected--based on his opposition to ALL of the factors and policies that have been successful in preventing repeats of 9/11.

How could the truth of that and the importance of that NOT resonate with voters?