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-- Joe the Plumber
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| Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Now that you've vouched for Joe, are you going to make that thread to honorably debate Opus or not? |
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| Originally posted by LatinLover The problem here is that the far left wants to discredit this mans concerns with his background. You dont have to be a role model citizen to be concerned and ask valid questions to a presidential candidate. Heck, Joe is a saint compared to all the crooks in Capitol Hill. This man is an average American like you and me. |
FFS, this is so retarded. I'm beginning to wonder if McCain's whole plan is to actually have this be debated. While we're talking about JTP we're not talking about McCain. Every time their campaign brings him up I think this more plausible. Its nice to know McCain is willing to throw this guy under the bus then point at Obama in order to keep the heat off himself.
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| 'Joe the Plumber' strikes back at media 1 hour ago NEW YORK (AP) � "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week. Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn. "The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America," Wurzelbacher told the former Republican presidential hopeful on his show, "Huckabee." Wurzelbacher said he felt terrible after reading some of the criticism of himself posted online. "I felt about that small," he said. "I mean I really did." Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been portraying Wurzelbacher as emblematic of people with concerns about Obama's tax plans. Wurzelbacher became famous after he met Obama and said the Democrat's tax proposal could keep him from buying the two-man plumbing company where he works. However, reports of Wurzelbacher's annual earnings suggest he would receive a tax cut rather than an increase under Obama's plan. "You know, I am a plumber," Wurzelbacher said. "Just a plumber." Wurzelbacher said he agreed to appear on the show after he received phone calls from friends serving in the military who voiced their support. "You know, when you can't ask a question of your leaders anymore, that gets scary," he said. On Sunday, McCain was to travel to Ohio, where he might appear with Wurzelbacher. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5...BjG8pwD93TAT0O0 |
Looks like they're gonna keep on hammering this:
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| Sen. John McCain stepped up his rhetoric against his Democratic rival on taxes in his weekly radio address Saturday, comparing his plan to "socialist" programs. The remarks were part of a theme McCain has used since the final presidential debate, but his most recent comments were the first time he used the word to describe Sen. Barack Obama. In the radio address, McCain didn't directly call Obama a socialist, but he let the now-famous Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher nearly do it for him. "You see, [Obama] believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism," McCain said Saturday. |
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| "John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people 'welfare,' " Obama told a massive crowd under the famous St. Louis arch. |
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| Originally posted by Renegade Only a Republican could describe a plan that seeks to reduce the tax burden for 95% of workers while increasing the tax-rates for the highest earners by a meagre three fucking percent as "socialism". I note that McCain isn't actually proposing the abolition of the progressive tax system, so the only conclusion I can draw is that the fine line separating good old-fashioned American capitalism from hardcore socialism lies somewhere between the tax rates of 33% and 36% on the top bracket of earners. |
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| A Liberal Supermajority Get ready for 'change' we haven't seen since 1965, or 1933. If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants. [Review & Outlook] AP Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on. The nearby table shows the major bills that passed the House this year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010. [Review & Outlook] - Medicare for all. When HillaryCare cratered in 1994, the Democrats concluded they had overreached, so they carved up the old agenda into smaller incremental steps, such as Schip for children. A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave. Mr. Obama wants to build a public insurance program, modeled after Medicare and open to everyone of any income. According to the Lewin Group, the gold standard of health policy analysis, the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed. The commitments would start slow, so as not to cause immediate alarm. But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal. - The business climate. "We have some harsh decisions to make," Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned recently, speaking about retribution for the financial panic. Look for a replay of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, with Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Ed Markey sponsoring ritual hangings to further their agenda to control more of the private economy. The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules. See the "Issues and Legislation" tab on Mr. Waxman's Web site for a not-so-brief target list. The danger is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries. - Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition. The bill also imposes a compulsory arbitration regime that results in an automatic two-year union "contract" after 130 days of failed negotiation. The point is to force businesses to recognize a union whether the workers support it or not. This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935. - Taxes. Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high. Mr. Obama would raise the top income, dividend and capital-gains rates for "the rich," substantially increasing the cost of new investment in the U.S. More radically, he wants to lift or eliminate the cap on income subject to payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security. This would convert what was meant to be a pension insurance program into an overt income redistribution program. It would also impose a probably unrepealable increase in marginal tax rates, and a permanent shift upward in the federal tax share of GDP. - The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy. Without the GOP votes to help stage a filibuster, Senators from carbon-intensive states would have less ability to temper coastal liberals who answer to the green elites. - Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally. Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition. - Special-interest potpourri. Look for the watering down of No Child Left Behind testing standards, as a favor to the National Education Association. The tort bar's ship would also come in, including limits on arbitration to settle disputes and watering down the 1995 law limiting strike suits. New causes of legal action would be sprinkled throughout most legislation. The anti-antiterror lobby would be rewarded with the end of Guantanamo and military commissions, which probably means trying terrorists in civilian courts. Google and MoveOn.org would get "net neutrality" rules, subjecting the Internet to intrusive regulation for the first time. It's always possible that events -- such as a recession -- would temper some of these ambitions. Republicans also feared the worst in 1993 when Democrats ran the entire government, but it didn't turn out that way. On the other hand, Bob Dole then had 43 GOP Senators to support a filibuster, and the entire Democratic Party has since moved sharply to the left. Mr. Obama's agenda is far more liberal than Bill Clinton's was in 1992, and the Southern Democrats who killed Al Gore's BTU tax and modified liberal ambitions are long gone. In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined. |
I just came to say ..
FUCK JOE!!
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| Originally posted by Renegade Only a Republican could describe a plan that seeks to reduce the tax burden for 95% of workers while increasing the tax-rates for the highest earners by a meagre three fucking percent as "socialism". I note that McCain isn't actually proposing the abolition of the progressive tax system, so the only conclusion I can draw is that the fine line separating good old-fashioned American capitalism from hardcore socialism lies somewhere between the tax rates of 33% and 36% on the top bracket of earners. |
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| Originally posted by Shakka That aside, this frightens me. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo look we got another one pissed that Obama was questioned. |
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| no Opus, in your haste to somehow nail me as a hypocrite you've failed to realize that Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is not asking for our vote. i don't know man, maybe if i were hiring a plumber "background and character" would be relevant or if we were hiring a plumber to be the POTUS it would be relevant...but we're not. he's the one thats actually doing the hiring therefore he deserves all due respect |
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| Originally posted by LatinLover The problem here is that the far left wants to discredit this mans concerns with his background. You dont have to be a role model citizen to be concerned and ask valid questions to a presidential candidate. Heck, Joe is a saint compared to all the crooks in Capitol Hill. This man is an average American like you and me. |
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| Originally posted by Shakka Much of the "socialism" bent (and I admit that I think the term is being overly used and being used a bit too loosely these days) is that a substantial percentage of those quoted in the "95% of workers" don't even pay taxes, yet they are receiving a "tax credit" which is just a pretty name for income redistribution and reeks of class warfare. |
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| * Real investment growth after the tax increases of 1993 was much higher than after the tax cuts of 1981 and 2001. The yearly growth rate after 1993 was 10.2 percent versus 2.8 percent for the first supply-side era beginning in 1981, and 2.7 percent in the period of the second supply-side era beginning in 2001. Without better investment growth being associated with supply-side policies, a critical link in the theory of supply-side economics is broken�and it is difficult to draw any plausible connection between supply-side tax cuts and any observed positive economic performance. * Economic growth as measured by real U.S. gross domestic product was stronger following the tax increases of 1993 than in the two supply-side eras. Over the seven-year periods after each legislative action, average annual growth was 3.9 percent following 1993, 3.5 percent following 1981, and 2.5 percent following 2001. * Average annual real median household income growth was greatest after the 1993 tax increases, at 2.0 percent annually compared to 1.4 percent after 1981 and 0.3 percent after 2001. * Wage levels also did better after 1993. Average real hourly earnings following 1981 fell at an annual rate of 0.1 percent and following 2001 rose at a rate of only 0.3 percent. Following the 1993 tax increases average hourly earnings grew by 0.9 percent per year. * Employment growth was weaker during the supply-side eras than during the post-1993 era. Average annual employment growth was 2.1 percent after 1981, 2.5 percent after 1993, and 0.6 percent after 2001. * Federal budget deficits and national debt increased during supply-side periods and decreased following the 1993 tax increases. In the seven years from 1993 to 1999, the country went from a federal deficit of 3.9 percent of GDP to a surplus of 1.4 percent. After 1981 the deficit ballooned to 6 percent of GDP by 1983. In the year the 2001 tax legislation was adopted, there was a surplus of 1.3 percent of GDP. This turned into a deficit of 3.6 percent by 2004, which fell back to 1.2 percent in 2007 but will undoubtedly be higher in 2008. The national debt has followed a similar pattern, rising by an astounding 14.8 percentage points relative to GDP over the 7 years following adoption of the 1981 supply-side tax cuts, shrinking by almost 10 percentage points relative to GDP following 1993, and moving back up by 3.8 percentage points relative to GDP after the 2001 tax cuts. http://www.americanprogress.org/iss...upply_side.html |
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| That aside, this frightens me. |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Obama has been more than capable to handle himself in this situation. The fact that Joe had to admit that he would likely get a tax cut, actually a BETTER tax cut under Obama's plan in realistic terms of the situation (and not the hypothetical that Shakka continues dreaming about) has done quite well to prove Obama's point and stance on the matter. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo in this country the top 1% pay 40% of Federal Personal Income Tax. down the scale the top 10% pay 70%. further down, the top 50% pay 97% of all Federal Personal Income Tax. it's mathematically disingenuous to believe Obama "seeks to reduce the tax burden for 95% of workers" when a large majority of those 95% end up not paying any taxes. what he's going to do is give those people in his target range the money that those other people above his target range have paid in their taxes (what we Americans call wealth redistribution)...minus whatever increases in spending he's put on the table. makes perfect sense |
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| Originally posted by Shakka Why you gotta hold the man down? Such a hater. If Joe is a decent plumber there is no reason to believe he couldn't expand his business pretty rapidly in the next couple of years, let alone 4-8. People generally don't go into business for themselves with no ambition for growth. That kind of defeats the purpose. It ain't no dream man, it's the Amurkan Dream! |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Another thing to consider is capital gains taxes - The wealthiest among us make the lion's share of their money through passive investments (buying & selling of stocks, real estate, etc.). This type of income is only subject to capital gains taxes of 15% if the asset held for more than a year. |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Your argument also assumes that the top 1% and/or top 10% actually pay their fare share of taxes accordingly, without jumping through creative loopholes that they are fairly well known to do. |
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| Other things to consider - payroll taxes being capped at $102,000. So for those who make above and far beyond this amount, they only pay at the same level as those making $102,000. |
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| Also, if you make $100,000,000 buying and selling stocks, you pay a maximum of 15% tax. However, if you make $35,000 waiting tables, then you pay 25% tax. Another thing to consider is capital gains taxes - The wealthiest among us make the lion's share of their money through passive investments (buying & selling of stocks, real estate, etc.). This type of income is only subject to capital gains taxes of 15% if the asset held for more than a year. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo and what does Obama want to increase the capital gains tax to? |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN In his discussion with the plumber, obama said that he wanted to lower some capital gains taxes did he not? |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo he said for small business owners he would eliminate it. your guess is as good as mine on what that means specifically. captial gains taxes here in America are levied on the sale of stocks, bonds and property and is a flat rate at 15%. he said this year he seeks to raise capital gains by the wealthy from 15% to 20-25% no higher than 28%. >LINK< |
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| Originally posted by jerZ07002 that's not entirely correct. capital gains are taxed at 5% for people who probably don't have the financial capacity to have capital gains (i.e., people in the lowest tax brackets), and the capital gain tax for corporations is 35%. Even if someone has a capital gain, it may be subject to a higher rate depending upon whether depreciation was taken with respect to the property. I wouldn't be too worried about capital gains tax for rich people. They can hire lawyers and accoutants significantly reduce their burden. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo ok. i thought the difference between the higher rate of 15% and the lower rate of 5% depended on the time invested. |
it turns out Joe was thinking about buying a company or assets worth 250k and his earnings were only 40k
lol
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| Originally posted by mndeg it turns out Joe was thinking about buying a company or assets worth 250k and his earnings were only 40k lol |
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| Originally posted by LatinLover You can buy or start a business by 1. Getting a loan from the bank 2. Have an angel investor 3. Launch a venture with an associate/partner 4. Take equity out of your home etc... You are not suppose to be rich to launch a business you know |
he's not going to earn 250k yearly with a capital investment of 250k on plumbing stuff
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