Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio -- a.k.a. "Joe The Plumber" -- is illustrative of everything that is wrong with the presidential campaign of John McCain. Since last week's debate, Joe The Plumber has become a personal talisman, an emblem, for the Republican nominee concerning his economic religiosity (calling it a philosophy would infer far more thought than has actually been applied to the subject).
See, Joe Wurzelbacher confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, purportedly concerned about the Democrat's economic plan. “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,” he told Senator Obama, identifying himself as a plumber. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?”
McCain seized upon one small sentence in Obama's answer -- "I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” -- as proof positive that Obama is out of touch with the entrepreneurial aspirations of the American people, that his proposed tax policy will hurt average Americans.
The only problem with McCain's assertions? They are based upon a lie. Or several.
Joe The Plumber, as it turns out, isn't actually a plumber. He has no plumbing license. He isn't about to buy the business for which he works; the fact that has a state tax lien upon his home makes that a practical impossibility. Even if he were to miraculously do so, the business doesn't make the amount he claimed; his employer reports that he is lucky to clear $120,000 annually (and if Joe were to purchase the business, he would probably clear less, considering the fact that he would have to employ an actual plumber). Wurzelbacher, in any conceivable reality, would be helped by Obama's tax plan. And it would seem that John McCain vetted Joe The Plumber about as well as he vetted Sarah The MILF.
Yet this is the perception of the Republican Party faithful: That "average Joes" somehow manage to make a quarter-million dollars a year without breaking a sweat (perhaps believing so because everyone that they know does). That it is somehow common or easy for a schlub making close to minimum wage to move into the highest marginal tax bracket (the economic statistics say otherwise). That the American Dream hasn't receded from the grasp of most Americans over the past 25 years of right-wing policies (again, the statistics say otherwise).
We live in a time when conservative pseudo-economics has held sway for over a quarter-century, when real wages continue falling for working people, when it becomes more and more likely that a working person will not have health insurance coverage, and when the disparity of wealth in America is at its highest point since 1929. We cannot afford to be duped by the fool's gold of the great right-wing lie.
Even when it is propounded by a previously-honorable man like John McCain.
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Another Glimpse Into Republican Economic "Thought"
The travails of Wall Street, and subsequent massive Federal bailout, that dominated the week's news cycle bring to mind a couple of thoughts:
1. "Taxation and regulation are counterproductive and immoral." That's the mantra that has been chanted at us by supply-siders for the last quarter-century-plus, and it has come to dominate the economic debate (to such extent as it exists) in our electoral politics. With it comes the explicit assertion that, if we just leave the ultra-wealthy to their own devices, it'll bring shared prosperity to us all.
The past week's events have quite clearly and effectively refuted that argument.
2. "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem." So they tell us... Except, apparently, when government can be manipulated into rescuing plutocrats from their own foibles, at the expense of the rest of us.
That's the dirty little secret of modern Movement Conservatism. Despite the rhetorical nobility of its supposed belief system, it is really just a well-organized and well-funded attempt to undo the egalitarian gains of the New Deal -- to return wealth solely into the hands of those who truly deserve it.
That deeply-held, laissez-faire conviction of Conservatism is readily abandoned when it is inconvenient, thus exposing the sad reality: Conservatives actually believe in nothing, other than their own right to hold power, both economic and political, over others.
1. "Taxation and regulation are counterproductive and immoral." That's the mantra that has been chanted at us by supply-siders for the last quarter-century-plus, and it has come to dominate the economic debate (to such extent as it exists) in our electoral politics. With it comes the explicit assertion that, if we just leave the ultra-wealthy to their own devices, it'll bring shared prosperity to us all.
The past week's events have quite clearly and effectively refuted that argument.
2. "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem." So they tell us... Except, apparently, when government can be manipulated into rescuing plutocrats from their own foibles, at the expense of the rest of us.
That's the dirty little secret of modern Movement Conservatism. Despite the rhetorical nobility of its supposed belief system, it is really just a well-organized and well-funded attempt to undo the egalitarian gains of the New Deal -- to return wealth solely into the hands of those who truly deserve it.
That deeply-held, laissez-faire conviction of Conservatism is readily abandoned when it is inconvenient, thus exposing the sad reality: Conservatives actually believe in nothing, other than their own right to hold power, both economic and political, over others.
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Glimpse Into Republican Economic "Thought"
In the news: Top McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm has bestowed his "wisdom" upon us concerning the U.S. economy. The former Republican Senator and financial services lobbyist believes that our economic problems are all in our collective head, that we are a nation of whiners, that it's just a "mental recession."
Really, Mister Gramm? That makes me feel so much better!
The rising cost of food at the local grocery store? The falling sales of the company for which I work, and the corresponding cutbacks? The inflation of energy costs, both at the gas pump and the electric meter? Thank God, they're all hallucinations!
Or maybe there is a better, more rational explanation. Maybe Phil Gramm, like so many Republicans, lives in a flimsily-built, inside-the-beltway fantasy world, insulated from the hard realities of life by some combination of material wealth and irrationalism.
In a perfect world, some unemployed Rust Belt everyman would meet Gramm in a dark alley and beat the living piss out of him, with the same lack of mercy that he and his ilk have shown those of us who work for a living. Then we could assure him that the pains from his many contusions and broken bones, the blood issuing from his orifices, were merely figments of his imagination.
But I digress.
Ultimately, this kerfuffle merely serves to illustrate why we cannot afford a President John McCain. McCain himself has admitted that he knows little about economics (as an aside, one has to wonder why Johnny Boy, during 25-plus years in Congress, never bothered to learn much about the subject), and it shows: He has, in his campaign, simply fallen back on the standard Republican economic orthodoxy, leaning on the likes of Gramm for poor economic advice.
We are on the verge of a second Gilded Age. And this time, in this time of unreason, in this New Corporate Age, we cannot count upon a second Progressive Movement to save us from it.
Really, Mister Gramm? That makes me feel so much better!
The rising cost of food at the local grocery store? The falling sales of the company for which I work, and the corresponding cutbacks? The inflation of energy costs, both at the gas pump and the electric meter? Thank God, they're all hallucinations!
Or maybe there is a better, more rational explanation. Maybe Phil Gramm, like so many Republicans, lives in a flimsily-built, inside-the-beltway fantasy world, insulated from the hard realities of life by some combination of material wealth and irrationalism.
In a perfect world, some unemployed Rust Belt everyman would meet Gramm in a dark alley and beat the living piss out of him, with the same lack of mercy that he and his ilk have shown those of us who work for a living. Then we could assure him that the pains from his many contusions and broken bones, the blood issuing from his orifices, were merely figments of his imagination.
But I digress.
Ultimately, this kerfuffle merely serves to illustrate why we cannot afford a President John McCain. McCain himself has admitted that he knows little about economics (as an aside, one has to wonder why Johnny Boy, during 25-plus years in Congress, never bothered to learn much about the subject), and it shows: He has, in his campaign, simply fallen back on the standard Republican economic orthodoxy, leaning on the likes of Gramm for poor economic advice.
We are on the verge of a second Gilded Age. And this time, in this time of unreason, in this New Corporate Age, we cannot count upon a second Progressive Movement to save us from it.
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