What it Means to Spread the Wealth Around

Early voting

Everybody has to pay taxes for schools and roads and all that.

The question is who should pay more? Should the people who earn $40K, $50K, $60K pay more or should the person making $250K and higher pay more?

McCain supporters (and all republicans) believe, like Bush, that the people and corporations making beau coup bucks should pay the least taxes. The logic is they create the jobs for the rest of us and that they earn their wealth, therefore they should pay less in taxes. They believe the more money they make, the more they should keep.

That's what I call greed. Why should the middle class pay a disproportionately higher amount of taxes? Not everybody can be a business owner.

What have the wealthy corporations done with their tax breaks? It hasn't benefited the economy as a whole as far as I can tell. Take a look around. 

The Bush-McCain tax cuts aren't really for small businesses, as McCain touts. They're for big business.

But McCain can't campaign on that. He can't say: I'm going to decrease taxes for big business! Can you imagine how that would go over? 

People would see through that, so he pretends that he's campaigning for small business, so the average Joe in Pennsylvania is impressed or hoodwinked, depending on how you look at it. The majority of small businesses don't make more than $250K.

Obama wants the tax structure to be fair so that the middle class can catch up. Incomes have gone down while the price of everything has gone up. Bush's tax structure has helped create a bigger divide between those who hold all the wealth and the rest of us.
 
McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts and then some. Republicans believe that the so-called job creators trickle down the wealth, therefore it's better that they get reduced taxes so that they can create more jobs.

The other argument is that they deserve reduced taxes because they earned more wealth. They worked hard.

Doesn't the person making $50K earn it too? Don't they work as hard?
Here is a side by side comparison of Obama and McCain's tax plans and what they mean to your salary.
CNN does a fact check on McCain running around saying Obama wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.

But that's not what it is. It's realigning the tax structure so that it's fair, so that the middle class can keep more of their money. 

This is what Obama means when he says spread the wealth around. That's a nuance lost on many who'd rather cry socialism or communism, which is not what it is. When the radical right cry Socialist! Liberal! Communist! it's all part of the plan to paint Obama as the unAmerican scary guy.

CNN: Obama explained his tax plan during the roughly five-minute exchange — telling Wurzelbacher that the tax rate on the portion of his income that was more than $250,000 would be increased from 36 percent to 39 percent. But he also mentioned that his plan includes a 50 percent small-business tax credit for health care and a proposal to eliminate the capital-gains tax for small businesses that increase in value. Obama said his tax plan, which he said focuses on bigger breaks for people making lower incomes, would be good for the economy. "If you've got a plumbing business, you're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you," he said. "Right now, everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Wurzelbacher said, "The reason I ask you about the American Dream, I mean I've worked hard. I'm a plumber. I work 10, 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. … I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, October 16, Wurzelbacher said he had misunderstood Obama's plan and that the company he wants to buy makes well less than $250,000 a year — which Obama says means his taxes would not be increased.

The Verdict:
Misleading. McCain's remark was an oversimplification of a five-minute-long conversation. Obama replied in great detail about his tax plan, and the "spread the wealth" remark was one small part of the conversation.

McCain the Economic Easter Bunny

The Nation: McCain clung to the fading vision of Reaganomics as seen through the lens of George Bush, defaulting again and again to a lexicon of tax cuts for the richest, empty promises of trickle-down prosperity, fantasies of spending freezes and the certainty of deeper deficits and greater dysfunction in a federal government.
For McCain, ultimately, it was all about those tax cuts -- for plumber Joe Wurzelbacher in Ohio who wants to start a small business and, though he did not mention it, for corporations that earn more in a quarter than the GDPs of more than a few sovereign nations.
"The whole premise behind Sen. Obama's plans are class warfare, let's spread the wealth around. I want small businesses -- and by the way, the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now," growled McCain. "Who -- why would you want to increase anybody's taxes right now?"
Obama chose to respond as an adult. More. 

Meanwhile, Karl Rove finds his own data to conclude Obama hasn't closed the deal.

In the campaign's final two weeks, voters will take a last serious look at both presidential candidates. The outcome of the race isn't cast in stone yet.

Barack Obama holds a 7.3% lead in the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, but the latest Gallup tracking poll reveals that there are nearly twice as many undecided voters this year than there were in the last presidential election. The Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll (which was closest to the mark in predicting the 2004 outcome -- 0.4% off the actual result) now says this is a three-point race.

This week also brought a reminder that Sen. Obama hasn't closed the sale. The Washington Post/ABC poll found 45% of voters still don't think he's qualified to be president, about the same number who doubted his qualifications in March. You can read more if you want. The rest says Obama is bad. McCain is good.

Here's the even more distorted take on the debate from right wing mag Town Hall. It seems this columnist saw a different debate.

Town Hall: McCain scored big with the Joe the plumber exchanges, and with the campaign tactics exchange. Obama looked angry and stumbled repeatedly as he tried to cope with what he really told Joe the plumber --guaranteeing the replay of the clip again and again and underscoring Senator Obama's flexibility when it comes to facts-- and with what John Lewis said. Obama's answer on ACORN was a jaw dropper and opens the door to the MSM, as does the Ayers exchange. McCain drove this home without going overboard. Repeatedly returning to Joe the Plumber was key for McCain, and by the last half hour Obama was petulantly telling Joe what the "right thing to do by his employees" was. John McCain then spoke directly to Joe and put a bright line around Obama's "spread the wealth" line, and the "fundamental difference" between the campaigns. When Senator McCain slipped and called Senator Obama "Senator Government," he scored when he didn't even intend to. That's the sort of thing that marks a great debate for McCain, when even his verbal flub advances the key message.
McCain accomplished more in just the first half of the debate than he did in the first two debates total, and the second half was just as good for him. "Spread the wealth" is now the Obama brand, and that can move the polls. So too can the drilling exchange ("I so admire Senator Obama's eloquence.") Senator McCain was animated and informed through-out, and Sebator Obama on the defensive on many occasions, including the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act." Catholic voters watching this exchange could not be comfortable with the Obama dodges. "Another example of the eloquence of Senator Obama," countered McCain. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position in America," McCain replied to Obama's winding explanation.

There are polls out that say no one really cares about Ayers. I think even fewer people know about Acorn. I can't even follow the wingnut line of logic on Acorn.
Salon:

John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know what" on Wednesday night. He hinted that he'd bring up former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than fierce.

McCain mentioned the now-famous plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, an apparently wealthy Toledo businessman who complained he'd pay more taxes under Obama's plan, more than he talked about Sarah Palin or Osama bin Laden, by far. Midway through the 90-minute conversation, Obama was addressing Joe the Plumber, too. And it was clear by then that McCain had lost three straight debates.

Debate transcript
Debate fact check