Joe the Plumber did more than add some levity to the last presidential debate. Joe, aka Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio, just may have awakened a swing bloc of voters that could make the difference in this election. This voting group can be described as "the rich" and those who aspire to be, and believe it or not, they could actually represent more than 20 percent of the electorate.
Until Wurzelbacher launched into his challenge to Barack Obama's rhetoric about the elusive "5 percent" of Americans whose taxes would be hiked, "the rich" seemed like some abstract, black-and-white concept. The U.S. economy, according to the Obama campaign and much of the media, was divided into either Wall Street fat cats or the rest of us Joe Six-Packs who barely had two nickels to rub together.
But Wurzelbacher put a face on the diverse class of voters could be classified as "rich" under a highly redistributionist tax plan such as that proposed by Obama. And the fact is that America has a dynamic economy with entrepreneurs and savers jumping back and forth into new income demographics all the time. As financial adviser Jim H. Ainsworth wrote on this site in August, "I know many people who have hit a high-income threshold only once in their lives."
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Joe the Plumber
At an October 2000 town hall on MSNBC’s Hardball, an audience member asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about why the rich pay higher taxes than the middle class. McCain defended progressive taxation, stating, “I think it’s to some degree because we feel, obviously, that wealthy people can afford more”:
ReplyDeleteTranscript:
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Since I’ve been studying politics, I’ve had this question that I’ve never fully understand. Why is it that someone like my father, who goes to school for 13 years, gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he’s a doctor? Why is that — why does he
have to pay higher taxes than everybody else, just because he makes more money? Why — how is that fair?
MATTHEWS: You mean…
MCCAIN: I think your question — questioning the fundamentals of a progressive tax system where people who make more money pay more in taxes than a flat, across-the-board percentage. I think it’s to some degree because we feel, obviously, that wealthy people can afford more. We have over the years, beginning with John F. Kennedy, reduced some of those marginal tax rates to make them less onerous.
But I believe that when you really look at the tax code today, the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do when you just look at the percentages. And I think middle-income Americans, working Americans, when the account and payroll taxes, sales taxes, mortgage pay — all of the taxes that working Americans pay, I think they — you would think that they also deserve significant relief, in my view…
MATTHEWS: How many — how many people here believe that the people who made the highest level of incomes in this country should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes?
Miss, do you want to follow up? Miss, do you want to follow up, do you
want to follow up, do you want to follow up? Go ahead.
MCCAIN: Do you want to follow up? Please…
MATTHEWS: Go ahead, please, go ahead.
MCCAIN: … you were dissatisfied with Chris’s comment, I could tell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I still don’t see how the — how that’s fair. Isn’t the definition of slavery basically where you work and all your
money goes? I’m not saying this is slavery, I’m saying that isn’t the defin — are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff, when you have — you have some people paying 60 percent overall in a year of their money to taxes. That’s their money, not the government’s. How is that fair? I haven’t understood it.
MCCAIN: Could I point out, one of the fundamentals of a town hall meeting is, we respect the views of others, and let them speak. So, look, here’s what I really believe, that when you are — reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more. But at the same time, that shouldn’t be totally out of proportion. There’s some countries such as Sweden where it doesn’t pay
anything to work more than six months a year. That’s probably the extreme.
But I think the debate in this country is more about tax cuts rather than anything else. And frankly, I think the first people who deserve a tax cut are working Americans with children that need to educate their children, and they’re the ones that I would support tax cuts for first.