So what’s this hoopla surrounding Joe the plumber anyway ? Another 1 of McCain’s aimless roundhouse punches again at Obama. McCain’s tactic here is basically devoid of any purpose but to paint the image of a fight-for-the-ordinary-guy in our minds. There’s a complete lack of mojo in this Joe the plumber caricature. Now Obama didn’t make Joe famous, McCain did and he has the bloody cheek to apologize to Joe for bringing him overnite fame and Joe the man is probably already busy milking his newfound fame. Now what’s all this fuss about Joe anyway. He’s far from being in the $250k bracket, so what’s the big deal ? I would dare say that most plumbers are unlike Joe, making less than $250k but maybe McCain’s own plumber is different. There is just no message here, nothing, nada, except for the fact that McCain wants to stick his face on Joe’s body so that we see him as our plumber next door who’ll save the country’s economy. Maybe McCain has a fetish of being a plumber ? Who knows ?
Now unless the conservatives want to make the case that progressive taxation doesn’t work, I can’t see where they’re going with Joe the plumber. Progressive taxation has been with us since time began. The poor will always pay less taxes than the rich. Under Obama, the rich will probably be asked to fork out more. Well call it socialism or communism or whatever, in times of need, it only makes sense that those with the means be asked to bear more of the burden. Good times will generally benefit the rich as the saying goes, “the rich gets richer” but in bad times, the poor and not-so-well-off is harder hit than the rich. The rich can ride it out but the poor suffers more. Now taxing the rich more does not call for the dismantling of the free market nor is it that we become a welfare state or even changing the current status quo much. Here’s why from a snippet in wikipedia :
In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.
In describing tax systems, it is important to distinguish between the percent of taxes paid on a given income, and the percent of taxes paid by a person with a given income. For example, if a person earns $1,000,000 and is taxed at a rate of 10%, they will owe $100,000 in taxes. On the other hand, if a person earns $10,000 and is taxed at a rate of 20%, they will owe $2000 in taxes. The person with the greater income is taxed at a lower rate but pays a higher tax. The person with the lesser income is taxed at a higher rate but pays a lower tax. The United States has a tax system which is a mixture of progressive taxation and regressive taxation. The income tax is progressive, capital gains tax, at a lower rate than the income tax, is regressive, as is the sales tax, since the less wealthy spend a greater percentage of their income. In 2003, the one percent with the highest salaries paid more than 34% of the nation’s federal income tax; the ten percent with the highest salaries paid more than 66% of the total income tax; the top 25% of paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper half accounted for virtually the entire U.S. income tax revenue (nearly 97%). This is an inevitable consequence of the concentration of wealth. People who do not have much money cannot pay high taxes, even when they pay a greater percentage of their earnings in taxes.
Now 40% of population owns less than 1% of nation’s wealth. Yes, 40%, holy shmokes ! Raising or lowering taxes for this group has no effect at all on tax revenues. The top 10% accounts for 66% of tax revenues. So now, who are you going to collect more in taxes to make any difference at all ? The top 10% of course. So Obama’s plan is not changing anything at all except collect more tax money from the top 5-10% of the population who can afford it. So I don’t see where Joe & McCain is going with all this sand being kicked in our faces.
