Joe the Plumber, a new spin
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| Fri, 10-17-2008 - 4:16pm |
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.
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/

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Pennsylvania Mom
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
As a previous poster stated, the benefits to the young people are more than monetary benefits.
"Why on earth should our government be giving my family $96k towards education!!!"
Pennsylvania Mom
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
Our economy and our government are in financial crisis - that's the big picture. Paying rich kids $40/hour for community service should not be part of the plan.
Why raise my taxes so the money can be spread right around back to my family? How much does it cost our government to collect and spread the money around to then benefit wealthy families too? How does the extra $100 billion he's going to get from the top 5% come anywhere close to funding all this?
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
"Our economy and our government are in financial crisis - that's the big picture"
~Ashley~
~Ashley~
I'm debating ideas, I don't have a link for every idea I have and we should be able to debate our own thoughts not just other people's thoughts.
The Obama policy information I've been bringing up I get from his website, I shouldn't need to link he site in every post.
My $100 billion number: $103.3 billion according to Tax Policy Center (quoted by factcheck.org) http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/the_budget_according_to_mccain_part_ii.html $131 billion according to Tax Foundation: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/23327.html
What other links am I missing?
>>>>Yes thanks to the man who has been running this country into the ground for the last 8 years.<<<<
The financial crisis is in part created by the mortgage crisis which is in part due to to deregulation enacted under Clinton with wide bipartisan support, there are many other factors besides the Bush tax cuts, and of note Obama only wants to let the tax cuts expire for the top two brackets (this is on his site, as well as here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&refer=home&sid=are4y0wpjqXU and here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccains_small-business_bunk.html)
http://openlettertobarack.blogspot.com/
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