Wanna hear what "Joe The Plumber" has to say...

[meganmecrazy]

Not sure who has seen this yet, but if your interested I thought I would share WHAT JOE HAS TO SAY (http://www.mikechurch.com/joomla/daily-show/joe-the-plumber-patriotism-and-common-sense.html)!

[my4boys]

Thanks for posting this, I never would have seen it otherwise. Such a wise man that Joe is!!!!!

[txmusicmom]

Thanks! A lot of Joe's around here.....

[Miss Chris]

From my perspective Joe is pretty ill-informed, he does not remember why he registered for the Natural Law Party, and reportedly does not pay his taxes....what's to like?

[Just Plain Kristi]

I'm another Joe and so is everyone in my family! Love what he said about America and freedom!

Kristi

ETA: I'm listening again...don't recall him saying he doesn't pay his taxes...just that he doesn't like the social security system and is upset his tax money was spent illegally by some local politician. Sounded like he pays taxes, just not happy with how it's being spent.

[Miss Chris]

Ok no matter what you think of Joe, this is pretty funny!
http://www.slate.com/id/2202480/

[Just Plain Kristi]

Did a quick google search for "plumber qualifications in ohio" and came up with this site (http://www.blogsforjohnmccain.com/ohios-license-requirements-plumbers-allow-joe-plumber-work). It takes 5 years of experience working under a licensed tradesperson to apply for a license in that trade. HTH!

Kristi

[vegaschristina]

I'm another Joe and so is everyone in my family! Love what he said about America and freedom!

Kristi

ETA: I'm listening again...don't recall him saying he doesn't pay his taxes...just that he doesn't like the social security system and is upset his tax money was spent illegally by some local politician. Sounded like he pays taxes, just not happy with how it's being spent.

According to his home state, he's behind $1200 on his state taxes. I saw it on tonight's evening news.

[~ashleigh]

Paraphrasing David Gergen on CNN, "I am surprised the McCain campaign didn't vet Joe the Plumber better before thrusting him in the spotlight."

Surprised? Reeaaally... Anyone else find irony in this statement? :lol

[Miss Chris]

According to his home state, he's behind $1200 on his state taxes. I saw it on tonight's evening news.
Yep, what she said!

[Glueless Media]

Not sure who has seen this yet, but if your interested I thought I would share WHAT JOE HAS TO SAY (http://www.mikechurch.com/joomla/daily-show/joe-the-plumber-patriotism-and-common-sense.html)!
Thanks Megan

[Glueless Media]

You and I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding why he owes taxes?
Does the plumbers owing back taxes make the argument, discussion any less valid?
The answer ( in my OP) is NO!:) What Joe has to say hit home around here!

[Miss Chris]

You and I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding why he owes taxes?
Does the plumbers owing back taxes make the question asked any less valid?
The answer ( in my OP) is NO!:)


I don't mean to be dense, but to which question are you referring? I think I am missing something...

[Glueless Media]

Not dense Chris, just me reading two many threads with too much going on here..lol I have edited my original thread( you are too quick)lol.

[Just Plain Kristi]

Behind in taxes doesn't mean he's not trying to pay them...sounds like it's just as likely he's already overburdened by state taxes on top of the federal ones. I can totally understand why he'd be asking candidates about their tax plans with this kind of debt on top of him. And that 'considering' buying a business may actually be more like a dream. Maybe he's lining up financing and will cover this debt in the process, or plans to buy the business so he gets more of a cut so he can afford his state taxes. We don't really know what's going on with Joe's personal finances...the guy simply asked a candidate a question and got put into a huge media circus because Obama actually came right out and used terminology like 'spread the wealth' revealing the true nature of his income redistribution plans. Now his tax debt is national news as is his status with regards to a plumbing license. Anyone even notice he's a veteran? He sounds like a patriotic hard working average Joe (pardon the pun) who's trying to make ends meet and is frustrated with politicians over-taxing then spending it all on things he doesn't agree with. That's the whole point of this process...it's our chance to say with our vote how we want the money spent and how we want our positions on the issues represented.

Kristi

[Miss Chris]

Behind in taxes doesn't mean he's not trying to pay them...sounds like it's just as likely he's already overburdened by state taxes on top of the federal ones. I can totally understand why he'd be asking candidates about their tax plans with this kind of debt on top of him. And that 'considering' buying a business may actually be more like a dream. Maybe he's lining up financing and will cover this debt in the process, or plans to buy the business so he gets more of a cut so he can afford his state taxes. We don't really know what's going on with Joe's personal finances...the guy simply asked a candidate a question and got put into a huge media circus because Obama actually came right out and used terminology like 'spread the wealth' revealing the true nature of his income redistribution plans. Now his tax debt is national news as is his status with regards to a plumbing license. Anyone even notice he's a veteran? He sounds like a patriotic hard working average Joe (pardon the pun) who's trying to make ends meet and is frustrated with politicians over-taxing then spending it all on things he doesn't agree with. That's the whole point of this process...it's our chance to say with our vote how we want the money spent and how we want our positions on the issues represented.

Kristi

I agree with you that we do not know the answers to why he is in arrears. But I do think it is interesting. OTOH I could care less about whether he is a real plumber or not. For me it has a lot more to do with the many things he said with which I do not agree. Additionally, he can not explain his party affiliation which seems highly suspect to me.
Bottom line though is despite my polar opposite viewpoints, I feel sorry for the guy. He did not ask to be thrust into the spotlight and he will be put through the wringer and dragged through the mud before this is all over and that is unfair.

[Just Plain Kristi]

ps, The Natural Law party seems to have closed down in 2004 and hasn't had candidates running for office since 2002. The Ohio page had some contacts though so it might have been more of a thing around there...I'd never even heard of it until today (no state chapters listed for Texas.) Kind of an obsure thing for a report to dig up and throw at him...I don't know that I would remember too many details from 2002...what if it was a voter registration drive type of thing? I wonder how many people recently registered by ACORN have any real affiliation with the Democratic party? This sounds to me like a non-issue, a disctraction, and an attempt to invalidate this man's opinions and his message speaking for the middle class worker. Just my opinion though.

Kristi

hehehe...hey Chris, you and I keep posting at the same time!

[Miss Chris]

You really could not tell me why you registered for a certain political party only 6 years ago??
Regardless, my point is that his message is not speaking for this middle class worker.

[Scorpiosue1102]

Paraphrasing David Gergen on CNN, "I am surprised the McCain campaign didn't vet Joe the Plumber better before thrusting him in the spotlight."

Surprised? Reeaaally... Anyone else find irony in this statement? :lol


Doesn't surprise me at all.

[Gina.Maria]

I'm sure Joe's not happy about being in the spotlight since that kind of harsh glare has a tendency to bring out the worst in even the best of people.

[Chreamps]

Well, looks like "Joe" is getting more than his 15 minutes, and I wonder if he regrets it now.

I found some information from Scholars and Rogues (http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/10/03/obama-tax-plan/) website (cannot vouch for the website as to which way it leans but he has links to back up this article):

Obama's Tax Plan Doesn't Hurt Small Business

UPDATE: Marc in the comments made a point about sole proprietorships with employees that I’d like to address as well. Barack Obama wants to reduce taxes for roughly 95% of the United States while raising taxes on the other 5% - those making more than $200,000 per year. John McCain wants to lower taxes on everyone, and attacks Obama’s tax increase on the upper 5% as destroying small businesses and jobs. I decided to do some research on this issues to see if, in fact, raising taxes on those individuals making more than $200,000 would reduce employment or not, and I found out some interesting things. The conclusion, however, is this: Obama’s tax increase on the wealthy will not directly harm small businesses. At. All.
First, some definitions so we all know what I’m talking about. So far as I can tell, the only small businesses that pay taxes at the personal income rate are “sole proprietorships”, the simplest type of business in the U.S. According to NOLO.com (http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/pg/1/objectId/3FD19141-DB91-4FCA-BDB93416A4D05479/catId/3FED35C1-7BBA-4468-901354F101CBEBE2/111/182/147/ART/), a sole proprietorship may have employees, but the census indicates that the bulk of sole propreitorships do not - they’re considered nonemployers (http://www.census.gov/epcd/nonemployer/view/define.html#nonemployer), and they are the largest portion of all U.S. businesses.
In 2005 (the last year for which there is both data on nonemployers and employers at the U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/)), there were 20,392,068 nonemployers with a total income of $951 billion (Source: Nonemployer Statistics, 2005, Total for all sectors, United States (http://www.census.gov/epcd/nonemployer/2005/us/US000.HTM)). Small business employers1 numbered 5,878,784 (Source: Statistics of U.S. Businesses, All Industries, 2005 (http://www.census.gov/epcd/susb/latest/us/US--.HTM)). The total number of all employer and nonemployer businesses in 2005 was 26,375,614, of which 26,270,852 (or 99.6%) would qualify as small businesses as I’ve defined it above. This would be why people respond when you threaten to increase taxes on small businesses - there’s a LOT of small businesses.
But look closer at those numbers. The average income per nonemployer small business is the total income divided by the number of employers, which in this case is only $46,635. What that means is that the vast majority of nonemployer small businesses (which we can probably fairly say are mostly sole proprietorships) would be unaffected by the Obama tax cut. In fact, since they make so little, they’d get a tax cut, not a tax increase.
Yes, you read that right: the average small business would get a tax cut under Obama’s tax plan, not a tax increase as McCain has suggested.
Various websites have suggested that there are between 15 and 20 million sole proprietorships - that’s less than the number of nonemployers from the Census data, but since some employers are certainly covered while some non-employers certainly aren’t, we’ll assume that all the nonemployers are sole proprietorships. Further, if you look at the Census household income survey for 2005 (http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S1901&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-state=st&-format=), you’ll find that only 3% of all households made more than $200,000. Since sole proprietorship income is taxed as household income, we can probably fairly assume that only about 3% of all sole proprietorships in 2005 would be affected by Obama’s tax increase.
This means that only 3% of all businesses would see their taxes go up as a result of the Obama tax plan.
And this will cause our employment situation to get dramatically worse how, exactly? It’s not like all 3% will go out of business entirely as a result of the tax increase - the increase just isn’t big enough to drive them all out of business. In fact, according to this BusinessWeek Q&A (http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvice/ask/sa990930.htm), the numbers are hard to estimate, but that 9% per year is a commonly used value. If we assume that the Obama tax increase boosts the failure rate for sole proprietorships from 9% to 14%, then that’s approximately an additional 31,000 jobs lost.
Of course, if we say that the tax cut to the other 97% of sole proprietorships drops the failure rate from 9% to 8%, then that’s an additional 198,000 jobs created by the other sole proprietorships, for a net increase of 167,000 jobs. Annually.
Or, as Factcheck.org said when they tackled this issue earlier this year (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccains_small-business_bunk.html):McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would raise tax rates for 23 million small-business owners. It’s a false and preposterously inflated figure.
UPDATE: Let’s broaden the definition to assume that all small business employers with less than 10 employees are also sole proprietorships. From the employer Census link for 2005 above, there were 4.72 million employers with fewer than 10 with a total of 12.83 million employees. Let’s assume that, as above, no more than 3% of those employers fall into the $200,000+ individual pay bracket. That’s a total 110,000 employers and 31,000 employers for businesses with 0-4 employees and 5-9 employees respectively. Again, if we assume that there’s a 5% increase in business failures equally through both sizes of businesses (from 9% to 14%), that’s a total of 5500 businesses sized 0-4 employees and 2790 businesses sized 5-9 employees that would fail due to the tax increase.
The average number of employees for all businesses in the 0-4 employees category is 1.66 employees per business. The average number of employees for businesses in the 5-9 employees category is 6.66 employees per business. Calculating the job losses we get 8,855 employees in those 5500 newly failed businesses (0-4 employees), plus 5500 for the owners themselves, and 18,582 employees in the other 2790 businesses (5-9 employees) plus another 2790 for the owners. Total is 35,036 extra employees losing their jobs.
Adding that to the 31,000 sole proprietorships from the first analysis, that’s a total of roughly 66,000 jobs lost every year. And just in sole proprietorships alone (never mind the newly expanded 0-9 employees category) we created 167,000 new jobs. Include the 1% decrease in employer small business failures (from 9% to 8%) on businesses sized 0-9 employees and that’s an additional 176,000 new jobs, for a total of 343,000 new jobs across all nonemployer and employer small businesses.
Put bluntly, even if we assume the worst case cost of 66,000 jobs and that every business with fewer than 10 employees is a sole proprietorship (and it’s not), the Obama tax plan is still creating 277,000 new jobs every year.
1 I chose to define “small businesses” as those businesses with fewer than 100 employees. The Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov/services/contractingopportunities/sizestandardstopics/tableofsize/index.html) uses a much more complicated measurement that depends on the industry and total revenues/number of employees.


"Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for Everyone Else" quote from Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor on the Jon Stewart Show (http://www.thedailyshow.com/).

[Charlene]

What I don't understand is why on earth McCain brought this guy into the spotlight. this is pure speculation but the only reason I can think of is that he is trying to appeal to the middle class. Trying to insinuate that a middle class person is going to save more in taxes which is just. not. true. The more you make the more tax money you will save under McCain's plan, not the other way around.

[Charlene]

Ack double post

[Gina.Maria]

What I don't understand is why on earth McCain brought this guy into the spotlight. this is pure speculation but the only reason I can think of is that he is trying to appeal to the middle class. Trying to insinuate that a middle class person is going to save more in taxes which is just. not. true. The more you make the more tax money you will save under McCain's plan, not the other way around.

I guess "Joe Six-Pack" wasn't a likeable image (who wants to associate their Vice President with the slob on the couch popping open a quarter-case of beers?) and they needed another "Joe." :p

[Microferk ~ Miki Ferkul]

Paraphrasing David Gergen on CNN, "I am surprised the McCain campaign didn't vet Joe the Plumber better before thrusting him in the spotlight."

Surprised? Reeaaally... Anyone else find irony in this statement? :lol

:lol3

[tammy1999]

You and I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding why he owes taxes?
Does the plumbers owing back taxes make the argument, discussion any less valid?
The answer ( in my OP) is NO!:) What Joe has to say hit home around here!

You are exactly right!! But then you have to remember, his name was brought up by McCain, so the media is going to crucify him. Doesn't matter the point he was making with Obama at all. Same thing is happening to Palin. But could this also be a ploy to cover up what Obama said about the "spreading the weath" comment?

[NellieRose]

You are exactly right!! But then you have to remember, his name was brought up by McCain, so the media is going to crucify him. Doesn't matter the point he was making with Obama at all. Same thing is happening to Palin. But could this also be a ploy to cover up what Obama said about the "spreading the weath" comment?

A cover-up for making a statement of "spreading the wealth around"?

Perhaps the McCain campaign wants to keep this lame "joe the plumber" story going to divert attention from his appointing William Timmons as his main man in transitioning his administration should he be elected!?

[txmusicmom]

A cover-up for making a statement of "spreading the wealth around"?


AMAZING how the media jumped on this like a tick to a dog.... :)
We know more about Joe the plumber than we do about Obama.
Boy they can sure dig when they want to-and in an awful hurry.

Let that be a lesson- don't question Obama or you too can be flamed.

Yep he said it- spread the wealth........Obama said it. Now we're starting to find out....the REST of the story.

[Tiffikat]

Sometimes I truly do not understand other people. I really think I never will. (I don't mean that in a bad way for anyone, I imagine we have all just had very different life experiences that have led each of us to different places and especially during this election I find myself unable to understand the place where others are at).

This is a subject though that I think I will just agree to disagree on. I will say as a middle class person I am not impressed with "Joe the plumber" and he certainly does not speak for me.

[HLWalter725]

This isn't meant to sound snarky, just a legitimate question: Isn't "Spreading the Wealth" a phrase that is used to mean more than LITERALLY taking from one and giving to another. I mean does it have to be taken so literally? I take it to mean, come on already folks, let's get some programs and needs to those in need, not let's change our American society to communism.

[Gina.Maria]

I get what you're saying, Heather. All of a sudden, "Spread the wealth" is a dirty phrase when it can mean so many things. I've heard the words, "Share the wealth, man," in so many contexts and at various times in my life and it rarely pertained to money (it was usually in reference to pizza ;).) "Wealth" means "opportunity" as much as it does "money."

[CraftTeaLady]

I think he did a good job, considering he is in front of a large group of reporters and he prob doesn't any 'grooming' or public speaking training like the candidates do. I guess if you don't take that into acct and say he's doing a bad job - you might be an 'arm-chair quarterback'. :D

[txmusicmom]

I think that's exactly what Obama meant-- they were talking about money.......

share the wealth..............taxing the rich.........giving to those not rich......... or- providing government services for those not rich......

[Miss Chris]

Or maybe he meant that now it is the middle class's turn to get some tax breaks! Since we have been spreading it to the upper class for awhile now I am not sure why it is suddenly bad??