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Is "Joe the plumber" middle class?
John McCain was widely criticized after the first two debates for never mentioning the middle class. So during the last debate he came up with what seems to be a way of mentioning "middle class" without really talking about the middle class.
Meet "Joe the plumber", the subject of much of last night's debate. When you hear his "name", you immediately imagine the middle class, even the lower middle class. And he'd be paying a 3% higher tax under Obama? How can Obama put a higher tax burden on a plumber? If he does that to a plumber, surely clerks, janitors, cab drivers and other middle class folks would be affected as well...
However, Joe is an exceptional plumber, being able to buy the business that's making at least $250.000 a year. That's certainly good for Joe, but it means that through his successful hard work he has managed to move out of the middle class and into the top 5%.
So the subject of much of last night's debate was actually Bush/McCain's tax breaks for the upper class, which is nothing new. But by referring to this borderline case, McCain has, I think pretty successfully, sold it as "helping the middle class".
And I think this caught most people by surprise, including Obama, who seemed to fall for the trick and continued talking about "Joe" instead of saying: "Hey, that's upper class, they're doing just fine already and will continue to do so. Now let's talk about the middle class, the hurting majority!"
Pundits seem to have missed it as well. And I think McCain will continue to get credit for this instead of it being recognized as something that could well be called another deception (albeit a more clever one than most).
Meet "Joe the plumber", the subject of much of last night's debate. When you hear his "name", you immediately imagine the middle class, even the lower middle class. And he'd be paying a 3% higher tax under Obama? How can Obama put a higher tax burden on a plumber? If he does that to a plumber, surely clerks, janitors, cab drivers and other middle class folks would be affected as well...
However, Joe is an exceptional plumber, being able to buy the business that's making at least $250.000 a year. That's certainly good for Joe, but it means that through his successful hard work he has managed to move out of the middle class and into the top 5%.
So the subject of much of last night's debate was actually Bush/McCain's tax breaks for the upper class, which is nothing new. But by referring to this borderline case, McCain has, I think pretty successfully, sold it as "helping the middle class".
And I think this caught most people by surprise, including Obama, who seemed to fall for the trick and continued talking about "Joe" instead of saying: "Hey, that's upper class, they're doing just fine already and will continue to do so. Now let's talk about the middle class, the hurting majority!"
Pundits seem to have missed it as well. And I think McCain will continue to get credit for this instead of it being recognized as something that could well be called another deception (albeit a more clever one than most).
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Joe the Plumber hasn't bought his business yet. He said in an earlier interview, "if I can scrape together the downpayment..."
Joe, like most plumbers, probably makes closer to the average salary of from $51,000 for a licensed plumber to $42,000 for a journeyman plumber.
The Washington Post Fact Checker says Obama is right, Joe wouldn't get penalized with an Obama healthcare plan for small businesses. Yep, yep... that would be zero penalty. Zero????!!!!???? (eyes bugging out of sockets) Yep, Zero.
Perhaps Jos should dazzle us with more of his knowledge of the great tap dancers in history, as he did with Katie Couric last evening.
October 16, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've thought from the start Joe "the plumber" is full of crap. His story doesn't even add up; who says "oooh I think I'll pass on making more money if I have to pay taxes on it."?
Now it's coming out that he may have even more connections:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845
http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/10/15/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-related-to-charles-keating-oops/
Two words: McCain plant.
October 16, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Joe the plumber is one of those others that mccain is banking on....i can't say it too loudly!!!
October 16, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. Joe the Plumber is really "Joe the Executive"--the real Joe Plumbers work for him. There's nothing wrong with being Joe the Executive, but let's not pretend he is middle or lower class. He's not the guy that fixes our sinks, which is the image Mr. McCain was obviously trying to conjure up.
October 16, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I know why they have to hire upper-class folks to pretend to be middle- and working-class: they don't know any actual middle- or working-class.
October 16, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, with income above $250,000, projected or otherwise, Joe certainly wouldn't be middle class. If he intends to own a plumbing business, it's entirely conceivable that he would make that kind of money, but the real problem is that most people just don't seem to understand how income taxes work.
There is no situation in which a person can actually have a net loss in money by earning more and being taxed at a higher rate. The higher rate only applies to the amount of money above $250,000. So if Joe earns $280,000 instead of $250,000, he'll pay an extra 3% on $30,000 of it, only $900. I can understand that he would like to keep that $900, but it's not as if he couldn't buy a business because he'd wind up having to pay an additional $900 out of $30,000 dollars of income, and that's how the conservatives have framed the 'issue.'
October 16, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain said in the debate 'congratulations Joe, your rich.' So, he clearly did not view Joe the Plumber as middle class, even though McCain's previous definition of rich was having over $5 million a year. He was going after Obama's plan to 'redistribute wealth' and Obama made the case for why it is necessary.
October 16, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where do we start with this guy?
1) He doesn't own his own business, and doesn't even have a license.
2) He lives in a manufactured home.
3) He thinks Social Security is a terrible thing.
4) His family married into the family of the infamous Charles Keating of the Keating Five (does that make him a McCain relative?)
5) His voter registration has his name misspelled, but since he didn't register this year, he won't be challenged for voter fraud.
6) The only way this bozo will ever start his own business is if Cindy McCain fronts him the money and hires someone to teach him to run it.
Joe the Plumber might not be in favor of redistributing wealth, but he should certainly support redistributing brains. When they were handing them out, he was under the sink, showing buttcrack. And he was badly shortchanged.
October 16, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
My thoughts exactly, but I think Mr. Clean is in denial.
http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/joe-the-plumber-in-middle-class-denial/
October 16, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain supporters excuse all the fraud. It should be exposed, but we should also take the tax issue head on. Concede that a business would pay something on the amount over 250k. Then ask, "Mr. Employer, do you expect a healthy, well-educated employee to be transported to your door for free?"
October 16, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just commented in another post exactly what you are saying here and present the question, who would plant the scenario that a blue-collar, middle class, Joe the Plumber is going to get taxed by Obama? And McCain mentioning Joe the Plumber 21 times during the debate...seems his talking points were written in advance about Joe the Plumber when it was actually Obama's scenario. Whether Joe the Plumber is a real person is irrelevant, what's relevant is the concept that he's planting in people's mind that Obama will tax the middle class.
October 17, 2008 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Joe the Plumber represents the thought that white working class voters are going to face tax increases along with the idea that there's going to be a redistribution of wealth away from working class families to "other" Americans. The question is who are these "other" Americans if they are not the same working middle class that he'd be taking hard-earned money from?
My guess is this is a very subtile racist suggestion to scare white male voters; something like Obama is going to take their hard-earned money and give it to lower-income African Americans and Hispanics and whomever else.
Perhaps this Joe the plumber fear tactic is actually a thinly veiled racist attack.
I think this might be the case because wealth redistribution policies usually target the upper classes, not the middle class. The latter are generally the beneficiaries of such redistribution.
So if there's a redistribution it has to go down to the lower income groups. I mean why do we need to redistribute upwards? The upper income bracket has already benefitted from 8 years of positive wealth accumulation, er, wealth redistribution.
October 17, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink