Joe the Plumber, a new spin
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 10-17-2008 - 4:21pm |
The appeal of Joe the Plumber is that he puts a face to a tax number. Even if he's really not earning that much or isn't even a plumber. I am married to someone who makes that much and let me try to make the same point from a different perspective.
Go ahead, raise my taxes Obama. You are right, I can afford it. But first I'd like you to meet Mike, Steve and Emily. I don't own a business or anything, but I do spend my money (you know, since I'm one of the have's, that's what we do). Obama wanta to spread my wealth around and here's how it will affect 3 people in the middle and lower income brackets.
Mike - Mike is a music school teacher. He does private lessons on the side to make a little extra, in addition to volunteering in a community band. He loves teaching and playing music. He teaches one of our children and we pay him $100/mo.
Steve - Steve works full time doing private music lessons. He has two kids who he pays child support for and he lives on the edge of poverty. Private lessons is his only source of income. We pay for him to instruct three of our children and me every week. We pay him $364/mo.
Emily - Emily works full time but became a mom at age 18 yo, has no education past high school and lives near the poverty level. She is on her own being recently divorced. She helps us out once or twice a week, earning $120-$160/mo.
I recalculated Obama's tax proposals and realized it will only cost my family $1,350/mo on average. I can cover almost half of that by cutting my budget back, not hiring the babysitter and doing away with private music lessons (they are luxury items anyway).
I'm sure Mike, Steve and Emily will be glad to know that instead of earning money from my family, they will get $500 refundable tax credit next year under Obama's plan. And maybe even if $300 stimulus check like they got from Bush in the past.
Make less and pay less in tax, that's Obama's plan for the middle class.

Pages
Also not sure where your 3% comes from. Obama is increasing the top marginal rate by 4.6%, but increasing it on the second highest marginal rate too, and increasing it 4% on payroll taxes over $250k.
I got my 3% from Obama's site.
Pennsylvania Mom
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
Perhaps under Obama's tax plan, Mike, Steve & Emily wont' HAVE to work two jobs to make ends meet. Perhaps Emily can go to night school instead of a second job.
I don't think touting a tax plan that allows you to give people who already work ONE job a SECOND job is such a great idea. I think more middle class people would prefer to be able to make a comfortable living working ONE job.
I'm not complaining about the current taxes, I think it's wrong to let the Bush cuts expire and then double the impact by increasing the payroll tax. I worry about the payroll tax impact to my husbands company, and financial decisions they may have to make as a result, given we are also in a down economy and they are tightening budgets and considering layoffs already, this will be another hit.
Before the Bush tax cuts my husband was in a lower income bracket.
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
Pennsylvania Mom
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
It's hard to predict under which president the economy will be better or worse.
Pages