WWJ(TP)S? (i.e. What would Joe the Plumber Say?)
WWJ(TP)D? (i.e. what would Joe the plumber do?)
Remember Joe the Plumber? The "everyman" that John McCain used as a prop to suggest that Barack Obama's proposal to cut taxes for working people, and to expand the earned income tax credit, amounted to pinko "income redistribution". Suddenly all of the GOP talking heads were describing Obama and Biden as closet socialists worshiping at the altar of Karl Marx.
I thought of Joe yesterday when I read the following passage from a news article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed Obama's proposal for a tax cut for working Americans as part of his economic stimulus plan:
"Business lobbyists
are pushing hard for Congress to allow companies that haven't paid corporate
income taxes to get a break too.
Start-up companies, alternative-energy firms and large corporations that
have been swallowing losses for years - such as automotive and steel companies
and some airlines -have already been arguing for such "refundability"".
Get it? A big company like GM, which has been so poorly managed that it has lost money for several years by making cars most Americans don't want, pays no corporate income taxes, because it says it has no net income. No doubt there are other companies that appear profitable, but use a variety of tax dodges to reduce their tax bill to zero.
Yet these guys think its only right that they get a "refund" of taxes they never paid just like the single mom struggling to support her kids on a low wage job gets a "refund" (called the earned income tax credit) to help cover the social security, medicare and local and state payroll taxes that automatically get taken from her paycheck.
Not content with the corporate bailouts that have benefited the financial service and auto industries, corporate lobbyists have their hand out again. What would Joe the Plumber call this type of "income redistribution", which sends tax dollars paid by working Americans and profitable corporations honest enough to pay taxes on their income, to companies that have not figured out how to earn a profit, or have shrewd tax lawyers and accountants who have figured out ways to make that bottom line on their federal tax return come out to zero?
Joe the plumber is an idiot. Not just his inane statements that paralleled Sarah's during the campaign, but statements he made later. I am starting to think he was a plant. A plant by reps and maybe local reps to disrupt an Obama function.
A Karl Rove/Donald Segretti type of scam.
I am sick and tired of welfare for corporations.
If they are going to get credit for bad years, then they should pay in good years.
Loans that must be paid back, secured by fixtures and land and stock.
January 7, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course he was a plant. That's pretty well established.
I wonder if he's going to be doing "hotel room" journalism* (as I suspect) or becoming acquainted with the term "pucker factor" in person.
* Actually, in his case, we all know it's going to be nothing other than pure propaganda.
January 7, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know Grouch, the funny part of this while the idiot is in the Middle East, is that someone will be writing every single word that he claims to be his. Why should that bother me?
I guess it goes like this. When you see propaganda, stand up and say...Hey, that is propaganda. That is bullshit. and then carefully publish a good essay demonstrating that is exactly what it is.
January 7, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find outright pathetic is that he's claiming to be a "war correspondent" - while he will almost undoubtedly never go anywhere near a flying bullet or falling bomb. He's a typical Republican chickenshit fraud.
I know people who have been under fire, some in combat, some as journalists. Not a one of them would piss on the guy if he was on fire.
January 7, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you ever seen him and Jeff Gannon in the same room at the same time?
January 8, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot the porn star's name. It took me awhile to get the joke. I think they have the same hair stylist. SOS you have me laughing early today.
January 8, 2009 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
How ironic that it will be JtP that sends US news down the toilet. Well, maybe it's not all JtP. Larry Craig is the one that got it in the restroom.
January 8, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me Joe has been so ingrained with the Reich-wing talking points they will not need to write them for him, directly, he already has them programmed into his head. It was what brought him onto the stage with McCain in the first place.
January 7, 2009 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL
January 8, 2009 6:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm hoping Joe the Plumber goes to Israel and continues blabbing about how God will protect him because he's a Christian until some Israeli soldier frags him.
As for the post get it through your thick head dude. GM didn't "mismanage" their way into this mess. Government policy from Ronald Reagan on steered them on the only course that gave them a chance to make money. They had to build high profit gas guzzlers because they couldn't make enough money to finance their legacy costs by making more and better smaller lower profit margin vehicles.
You'd think Republicans would be happy the Big Three and their unions kept all those retirees out of the Medicare system for four decades but I guess not. We need those union workers (a lot of whom are single moms) and their employers on our side dumbass. Like Obama says we're going to take those legacy costs off their backs with universal healthcare and in return they're going to be able to build clean 21st century vehicles we can afford. Keep slamming the Big Three (and their union employees) and watch them go out of business. And along with them MI, OH and a whole bunch of other heavily industrialized union states that'll go red in 2010.
January 8, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe's on his way to Israel
Merkava maintenance
January 8, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink