17 Oct 2008 |
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The compulsive gambler that is John Sidney McCain III came to the final Presidential Debate with what he considered to be a secret trump card. He christened the card “Joe the Plumber” and launched him across the table as all that is wrong with Barack Obama’s tax plan. Having failed to dent Obama’s lead with everything he could throw at him, including his discredited kitchen sink, he’s resolved now that painting Obama as the tax and spend uber-liberal committed to dispossessing rich Americans of their hard-earned dollars to give to the hoi polloi is his best gambit. And burly, bald-headed, goatee-spotting Joe the Plumber seems an appropriate totem. Unfortunately for John McCain, Joe the Plumber’s ‘problem’ didn’t resonate with most Americans on the night. Like Sarah Palin before him, he’s become an overnight media sensation and is, at least for the moment, doing his best to once again reenergize the constantly deflating Republican base. But any indication that he would be the game changer that McCain needs is still only firmly planted in the imagination of his equally bumbling choristers. In fact, it is more likely that the more independents get to strip Joe the Plumber layer by layer and the more they get to assess and reassess that whole encounter with Barack Obama and his subsequent statements to the entrapping press, the more likely he’d end up appallingly flat and phoney like Palin before him. The only difference is Joe the Plumber will be slashed, burned and buried without anyone mobilizing the sexism police to protect him, for obvious reasons. Of course, Americans love a good show, and Joe the Plumber gave them one with that exchange with Obama in Ohio. But after the show, they pick out the gimmick as well. The real swing voter can easily see that this whole Joe the Plumber story is a phantom, because, to begin with, the whole tax scenario he brought up is self-confessedly hypothetical. Any reasonably informed person must be amused, if not somewhat confused, by Joe the Plumber feeling really worried and scared about a situation that does not apply to him. Joe the Plumber is not yet earning $250,000 (according to him, “not even close!”). So, if he’s not one of the rich, why is he worried about Robin Hood calling at his door? Why wasn’t he asking Obama questions about his situation now, rather than about the fantasy he’s dreamt up? And why is McCain treating Joe the Plumber as the proud but tortured owner of $250,000+ being led to the slaughter by the heartless Obama? In fact, William Gale, Co-Director of the independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Centre thinks “it’s utterly bizarre that McCain chose this guy as the poster child, because this guy would get a tax cut under Obama, and wouldn’t under McCain”. He went on to point out that commercial business databases suggest Newell Plumbing and Heating (which is the business he says he intends to buy) has an annual sales figure of about $100,000. So, the fact is Joe as we know him today and as he’d be if indeed he buys the business should be happy that he’s escaping the tax cudgel of Obama; but instead he’s busy being “infuriated” on behalf of his phantom futuristic self! Speaking to a conservative website, FamilySecurityMatters.org shortly after the Debate, Joe the Plumber (who must now officially be declared Mr McCain’s ‘October Surprise’) said he asked Obama if he believed in the American Dream purposely to catch him off guard. And by his own convoluted reckoning, he did catch Obama off guard and exposed him as not believing in the American Dream, because rather than give a simple “Yes, of course!” answer, Obama took time to painstakingly explain what his plan means to him (that is if we ignore his earlier statement in the same interview that Obama did answer yes to the question! I warned you it was convoluted, didn’t I?) When asked what exactly he meant by the American Dream, Joe said for him it is “to have a house, a dog, a couple of rifles, a bass boat”. You would think anyone earning $250,000 or more, no matter how much they pay in tax under an Obama plan, should be able to afford these and more; yet Joe the Plumber thinks Obama is a dream-killer! But why should Obama help him achieve his American Dream (which at any rate he would be achieving with that sort of pay packet) and then forget those behind him who really need the help to achieve that Dream? Since Joe the Plumber was bold enough to openly confront Obama and show opposition to his tax plans, he should have been bold enough to tell Americans that he’d be voting McCain and give reasons he’d be doing so. But he wants to have his cake and eat it while hiding behind a secret button! Joe the Plumber isn’t resonating with most Americans because they recognize that he’s essentially a selfish, conservative foot soldier who’s making a song and dance about the fact that any amount above his illusory £250,000 will be taxed by 39 percent (as opposed to 36 percent now) with an Obama plan. Indeed, there are about 17 million small businesses in America and only about 183,000 make $250,000 and above, all of which represent about 5 percent of working Americans. Frankly, Joe the Plumber needs encouragement. He should be encouraged to stop thinking only about himself. He should be encouraged to think a little more about others, including those he intends to employ in the business (in terms of their overall gains from the combined effect of Obama’s tax and health policies). If he manages to do that, he would realize that his business stands a better chance of prosperity and helping others prosper. He’d realize that at all levels it is a better deal than the smoke and mirrors prescriptions of McCain. In fact, if he dares to stop dreaming and look honestly at his position today, with the court on his back to pay arrears of $1,182.98 in personal income tax (complete with an active lien on his property since January 2007) after just having struggled to pay off another lien for $1,261.37 placed by a local hospital for outstanding bills in July 2007 and with a 13-year old son to look after, the Obama plan would be his saving grace! By the way, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median pay for plumbers per hour at $20.44, which means to earn $250,000 he will need to put in 33 hours of work every day for a year. So, let’s just say his ambition to buy Newell Plumbing and Heating is a little on the cock and bull side. So, when he finishes doing this hit-job for his beloved Republican Party by pretending to be Joe Everyman (when he’s actually Sam Joe Wurzelbacher, cousin to Robert Wurzelbacher, Charles Keating’s son-in-law and major contributor to the Republican Party) he should seriously consider his own future and go in there and vote for his own wellbeing (if indeed he registered to vote as he claims). He must know by now that his creation is not resonating with the American people and cannot help McCain because most Americans recognize in him the same attitude exhibited by most of those who’ve put America in a bind today – that attitude that assumes they are the only ones working hard and the only ones who should gorge themselves on the American Dream. The more tragic part of this whole story is that Wurzelbacher isn’t living the American Dream and isn’t exactly close to doing so, not with the head of the local plumbers’ union in his area fulminating over his misrepresentation. Thomas Joseph says Wurzelbacher “makes himself out to be something other than what he is”. He revealed that Wurzelbacher had applied for a five-year apprenticeship training programme in November 2003, but dropped out before he could complete it and never applied for a licence. At the Debate, Mr McCain railed against Obama: “I will not stand for a tax increase on small business income. Fifty percent of small business income taxes are paid by small businesses. That's 16 million jobs in America. And what you want to do to Joe the plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business”. While I do not know from where McCain conjured up those figures, one thing is for sure – there are really no “millions more” like Joe the Plumber in America. According to figures from Internal Revenue Service, of the almost 20 million small tax returns filed yearly, only about 4 percent report taxable income of $200,000 or more while 88 percent report earnings of less than $100,000. Also, according to figures compiled by the Small Business Administration, there are less than 6 million small businesses that actually have payrolls, the rest being non-employer firms with earnings as low as a thousand dollars a year. Of these, the Tax Policy Centre is reporting less than 700,000 as taxpayers likely to pay higher taxes under the Obama plan. And not all of these can be traditionally described as small businesses as they include professionals such as lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and so on. In the end, it seems Obama’s claim that “98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000” is indeed the truth. And by the way, Obama did not say he was going to “redistribute wealth”; he said his policies would help to “spread the wealth around”. For those who understand, the first relates ideologically to socialism/communism and the second relates to social justice. Social justice isn’t a foreign term to Western capitalist societies, because from the beginning of the development of the modern state, its responsibility to encourage responsible acquisition of wealth and contribution to the common good is expressed through progressive taxation. In America, the matter has been settled constitutionally by the Sixteenth Amendment as far back as 1913. And if John McCain needs any further reminder of the virtues of progressive taxation, all he needs to do is listen to his greatest hero, Theodore Roosevelt who said in 1907: “The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government. Not only should he recognize this obligation in the way he leads his daily life and in the way he earns and spends his money, but it should also be recognized by the way in which he pays for the protection the States gives him”. Thus, when Conservatives shriek that Obama said he was going to “redistribute wealth”, they are only attempting to smear him and distort his views as usual. They are trying to say he’s a socialist or Marxist and one who is itching to take away your riches and give them to those vermin on the streets. They are telling you he’s going to punish industry and entrepreneurship and ruin your proud and beautiful edifices of individualism, hard work and honest earnings. McCain tried his best to sell that line at the Debate, but I don’t think many are buying it now and I don’t think many will buy it before voting day. They will not buy it because they see the hypocrisy expressed in this Republican Administration imposing bailout socialism on the whole country in the name of correcting deregulation-run-amok. They see it clearly in government’s desperate acquisition of giant banks and Wall Street behemoths, the supposed flagships of capitalist and free market success. They will not listen, because they know that strict ideological compartmentalization does not exist in today’s politics and that if it exists, it will never succeed as a tool of governance in democratic America. I just hope the Obama people go out there to explain that the contrived culture and class wars in America, the near-legalized roguery of the Wall Street posse, the insularity and inhumanity of Washington and the dire economic situation America finds itself today call for government action to check greed and excesses. Americans need to be told that no government can check greed and excesses, repair a broken Washington and win the confidence and trust of the rest of the world without using the social justice instrument. They must be told that this is why Obama’s tax, health, education, energy, general economic and foreign policies reflect this. Indeed, if there was ever a time Americans needed the calm and reassuring presence of government in their lives, the time is now. Obama on his part must continue to let Americans know that he has amongst his team of foremost advisers some of the richest, most credible and most accomplished Americans alive and that these people are joining and seriously supporting him because they know he isn’t going socialist. They support his plans because they know sacrifices have to be made not only for the greatest good for the greatest number, but to regenerate America and invest in new ideas that create new jobs and save existing ones. The Obama people should simply let John McCain continue his irresponsible plumbing with Joe the Plumber while they move into the American heartlands to deepen the message of this campaign which is to inspire America and the world at large. The work ahead has no room for diversionary gimmicks. They must remind themselves constantly, every minute and every second, that no victory is accomplished if it’s only still in sight. The Obama movement nationwide must bring the bacon home! So, get to work people; get to serious, focused work!
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