Joe the plumber sure put a face on the problem with taxing
small businessmen and giving it to workers paying little or no Federal
income tax at all.
Now
we learn that Joe isn't Joe, he isn't a licensed plumber*, and in actuality, is not in such a high tax bracket**.
This Joe's real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. But whether he
goes by Sam or Joe, there are plenty of small businessmen in the same
very real tax situation that Joe asked Obama about.
Joe may not exactly be the "Joe the Plumber" we thought he was, but Barack Obama's tax give away answer is very real and sincerely believes in the ideology of spreading the wealth around.
If it were not for "Joe" would Americans have heard from Obama's own lips that, (My emphasis)
"It's not that I
want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody
that is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too. I think
that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
There isn't anything really new about Obama's "spread the wealth around" message. It just never got much national coverage. Real Clear Markets spelled it out well back in February:
The Obama spend-o-meter is now up around $800 billion. And tax hikes
on the rich won't pay for it. It's the middle class that will
ultimately shoulder this fiscal burden in terms of higher taxes and
lower growth....
Obama would like voters to believe that he's the second coming of
JFK. But with his unbelievable spending and new-government-agency
proposals, he's looking more like Jimmy Carter. His is a "Grow the
Government Bureaucracy Plan," and it's totally at odds with investment
and business.
Obama says he wants U.S. corporations to stop "shipping jobs
overseas" and bring their cash back home. But if he really wanted U.S.
companies to keep more of their profits in the states, he'd be calling
for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Why isn't he demanding an
end to the double-taxation of corporate earnings? It's simple: He wants
higher taxes, too.
The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore has done the math on Obama's
tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6% personal income tax, a
52.2% combined income and payroll tax, a 28% capital-gains tax, a 39.6%
dividends tax and a 55% estate tax.
Not only is Obama the big-spending candidate, he's also the very-high-tax candidate. And what he wants to tax is capital.
...
Obama believes he can use government, and not free markets, to drive
the economy. But on taxes, trade and regulation, Obama's program is
anti-growth. A President Obama would steer us in the social-market
direction of Western Europe, which has produced only stagnant economies
down through the years.
Joe certainly got his minutes of fame. He was on the Mike Huckabee show and greeted like a hero. It took Joe the Plumber to put a face on the problem and bring it to the forefront. Why haven't we been talking more about this before?
Thank you, Joe. Sorry your life has become an open book.
*Many people in the trades do not have an actual license themselves but work under the license of an owner or boss.
** " Wurzelbacher never claimed to be making $250,000 a year. He told
Obama that he might be 'getting ready to buy a company that makes about
$250,000, $270,000' a year. His simple point was that Obama's punitive
tax proposals would make it more difficult to realize his dream."
Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.
Links:
Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin, Vicki Mckenna