Quote:
Originally Posted by fourteenandoh
"I don?t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit."
isn't the point that some people don't want other's money? i've heard joe the plummer say this on multiple shows. its a matter of principal. he doesn't care if he personally will be better off under obama's plan if it means that someone who is more successful than him has been taxed more to pay for it. i agree with that. america isn't about spreading the wealth.
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This isn't about
spreading any wealth whatsoever. It's about how we, as a a modern democracy and civil society, assign the relative tax burden to our citizens. In other words, who pays what to maintain all those roads, defense contracts, farm subsidies, public universities, medical research and the like.
It isn't about taking money out of my pocket and giving it to Joe the Plumber. It's about making me shoulder a proportion of this country's obligations that I can comfortably handle while maybe removing a little of that burden from people who are really struggling to make ends meat right now.
I do, however, find Joe the Plumber's responses fascinating for one reason: how the American psyche leads so many people to vote against their own economic interests. I am sure that Joe absolutely believes that he's just around the corner from that 250K income, so why would he want to ruin things for when he inevitably gets there. Yet any statistical socio-economic analysis of Joe based upon his current age, profession, social class and education levels would reveal that he has virtually no chance in his lifetime of threading that needle.