During last night's debate, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg gathered 50 undecided voters in Denver, and Time magazine was there. Republicans and Independents outnumbered Democrats 4-1 in the group, but they still wound up breaking for Obama by more than a 2-1 margin.
According to the article, the undecided voters "audibly snickered" at McCain's repeated use of exaggerated facial expressions, as well as his overemphasis on "Joe the Plumber."
Incidentally, it is coming out today that Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber" is not a tax expert. ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting that Wurzelbacher would actually receive a tax cut, not a tax increase, were he to buy his plumbing business.
Also, one has to wonder why Wurzelbacher is so concerned with taxes in the first place when he apparently has trouble paying them. A filing with the Lucas County Court of Pleas says that Wurzelbacher had state tax liens filed against him in 2007, either for delinquency or a failure to pay in full.
Advice to McCain: no more cracks about plumbers.
*****UPDATE*****
Now he doesn't even have a plumbing license. I'm starting to feel sorry for this guy.
Comments
Wonder if he's related to the Watergate Plumbers?
This reads more like a National Enquirer article. Virtually none of this is relevant to the discussion of Obama's tax plan and its merits - or lack thereof. The points that Mr. Wurzelbacher raised are valid, no matter his background or his breeding.
Obama’s tax plan quite simply feeds into Democrats' theory that those that have, have too much. Those that don’t have, deserve handouts. That is what it boils down to. Call it “wealth redistribution” if you wish but this type of system is in fact one of the tenants of socialism and communism.
I am most disappointed that McCain has not called Obama to the carpet on his claim that “95% of American workers would receive a tax cut.” This is wholly untrue if not a lie. The truth is that more than 1/3 of American workers do not pay income tax. That in and of itself makes the 95% figure invalid. What the plan does do is take money from those that do pay taxes and give it to those that do not. That’s right - Even if you do not pay taxes, you will receive a check from the Federal government under Obama's tax plan. Talk about increasing those the number of people on government welfare! All done on the backs of other hard working Americans. Amazing!
Do people even read his proposals? Apparently not because I simply cannot believe that most Americans would approve of this type of socialist system.
ET wonders if Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher is related to the Watergate plumbers... but let's first find out if Joe is related to Charles Keating!! Robert M. Wurzelbacher Jr. married Elizabeth Keating (daughter of McCain's good KEATING FIVE pal Charles Keating).
As far as I know, the Keating story has been debunked. There are two Robert Wurzelbachers, and Joe is related to the one that is NOT related to Keating.
the article shows that even the "idea" of "joe the plumber" is flawed...
joe does not own a business. joe makes no where near $250k, like the vast majority of americans (and even if he did own his company, it'd never make $250k of taxable income).
joe wouldn't be able to get the loans to buy the business because of the credit crisis. joe is a part of the american delusion that most of us have, we all want lower taxes for those who make over $250k for the day we "will" make that much. the cold hard truth is, most of us never will.
his argument is the same as someone who's 5 foot 5, 160 lbs saying, "i want to be a professional football player and pay less taxes when i make $800k a year, but then you'd raise my taxes by 3%, senator. so now i'm not going to try out for the cowboys."
tony, no matter what fox news tells you, it's called a "progressive tax" not socialism. go read some adam smith.
socialism, or facisim, is when the government bails out companies that lost trillions in credit default swaps.
I don't need Fox News. Socialism is:
"Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism by nature concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly."
Sounds a lot like Obama's tax plan and the Utopian society that Democrats fantasize about.
no...it sounds like somebody cut and pasted a definition from wikipedia without having an understanding of said definition...the same way joe the plumber throws his ridiculous tax theories around instead of just saying “i don’t want to vote for obama.”
it's not a "belief" that the wealth of this country is concentrated in a small segment of society, it's a fact. and no one's under the delusion that that's going to change anytime soon.
a "progressive tax" based on one's ability to actually pay is not an exotic concept. and it's worked well in the US in the past and will continue to work as long as the tax burden doesn't go too high that it destroys all incentives to work. joe, will obviously continue to pursue his super plumber dreams even if he'll pay another $2000 in taxes to the government once he's making $250k...in taxable income. if you’ve been anywhere near toledo in the past five years you would know that salary would make him just about the wealthiest man in the fifty mile radius...all for investing in a hundred dollar toilet jack.
The source doesn't make it any less true. Find a definition of socialism that does NOT include wealth redistribution as basic tenet of the system. It doesn't exist.
Your "progressive tax" is one that rewards the have-nots and punishes those that have. It is a form of class warfare, perpetrated by the federal government. There will always be those that earn more than others and that is a fact of life and as it should be. Just because I make more than your buddies in Toledo doesn't mean that I should have to open my wallet to support them.
first, you don't make anywhere near $250k a year and the taxes you do pay barely pay your share of the war in iraq where poor american kids are fighting poor iraqi people for a bunch of rich jerks...
and when you use a term like "class warfare" in relative terms to a progressive tax as we sit on our fat butts in front of a computer sipping on pepsi one, i ask you to look at the "true definition" of class warfare, like when the bolsheviks murdered the russian royal family and 20 million people lost their lives, a far cry from joe the plumber paying an extra 3% on his taxes so some hispanic kid in the inner city can get a high school diploma.
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