Obama essentially tells plumber ‘too bad’
Written by Michael Vass
Wealth redistribution. Senator Obama has promised it, Senator Biden feels it’s patriotic. Communist nations are built on it. But is it bad for America?
By now many have seen the conversation that Senator Obama had with a plumber over the weekend. This plumber, as I have seen reported, makes $280,000 and owns a small business. This is no fat cat Wall Street tycoon. This is no mega-corporation owner or major stockholder. This is a guy that comes to your house (or has employees that do) and fixes your pipes. No glamour, no excitement. And he might just live in your neighborhood, and his kids go to the same school your kids do.
According to Senator Obama, this man will pay more in taxes, and so will his business. Now plumbing is a decent living, but there is not growth spurts really. Plumbing companies don’t jump on the stock exchange, nor do they have 10 – 15% growth year over year. It’s likely that this guy makes 3 – 5% profit just like a grocery store owner or most other small businesses. And the 10% tax increase to businesses, plus another tax on him directly, means that he will be losing money in a company he may have been working on and living off of for 20 years now. Just because taxes changed and nothing else.
He will have 2 choices, raise prices – which most home owners can’t afford these days – or fire workers and cut their hours. And if Obama and Democrats can raise the minimum wage, he will likely have to do both with his higher taxes included.
But Obama doesn’t see that.
His focus is that people will have more money to pay the plumber. But he forgets that if more people are working fewer hours, if at all, then they make the same money or less and prices have to go higher just for the plumber to cover his breakeven cost. In the vacuum that Obama spins, changing how businesses make money has no effect on the people they employ. That’s polispeak. The real world means that if you change one part, the others react.
Personally I have seen a government that took money from hard working people to give to others. I lived in Russia in the 1990’s. And while I could afford to have people wait on line 2 hours to buy good meat for me, or 1 hour for bread, I don’t advise it. The people were great, but the style of life was – and continues to be – so far below the American standard that ex-patriots are often required to take vacations every 3 months and leave the country. America should not follow this path.
I’m not calling Senator Obama a communist. He is not. But his socialist plans do lead to a path where everything decreases the quality of life from what Americans are accustomed to and deserve. His economic plans are not to the benefit of the country. Wealth distribution benefits no one.
admin @ October 14, 2008
This plumber does not own a plumbing business and in fact is not even a licensed plumber. He has a $1200 tax lien against his property. He sure is a regular upstanding citizen. All you write is dribble and nonsense. You are living proof that incest is alive and thriving.
Lax,
First let me state that I (Michael Vass) did not approve your comment. I want that to be clear, 1800blogger approved it. I state that because I do not agree with allowing comments that attempt to belittle, personally attack, and insult any person.
But since your small-minded insult was allowed I will respond.
Obviously you have an opinion that differs from mine. Many people do, but they have the intelligence and respect to be able to provide a comment that explains why they disagree and have no need to try to insult me personally. I can only be lead to believe from the nature of your insult that you probably spent an inordinate amount of time typing.
Now I won’t bother questioning your dubious parentage, and I believe there is little more I could say about your lack of basic education than your insult conveys. But as to the facts of Joe the plumber.
Yes he owes taxes. No he does not own the business he asked Senator Obama if he should buy under an Obama tax plan. No he does not have a master plumbing license yet (he is in school and 3 months from it, having worked for 15 years under his boss’ license and not needing to spend time as an apprentice and journeyman).
None of these facts takes away from the question of Obama’s tax plan, nor the answer that Obama provided. Only those that wish to obscure the question and answer, out of fear how Americans might react to the truth of an effective cap placed by the Government on wages, focus on information that is not relevant to the question and answer.
Perhaps, if the major media were not so in love with the prospect of a left wing Democratic President, they might have asked Obama the tough questions that Joe had to ask. But again that is separate of the actual issue.
Lastly, Lax, I did not force you to find any site (of the 150 I regularly write for) my writing is on. I did not force you to read a word I have written. Obviously you searched and found me, and read what I had to say. So it must not have been so bad since it compelled you to read the complete post and respond.
Sadly you were not able to comprehend all of it, again I am lead to believe this may be the result of your bad hereditary gene pool due no doubt to your questionable parentage. But I have no reason to apologize for that, nor will I back away from the statements I made.