Joe the Plumber hates spreading around the wealth and says that is stealing; but as Colmes points out he was on Welfare. Joe the Plumber’s argument is that he paid into it. What Joe the Plumber is not looking up or is ignoring; the fact that social security and welfare are both government programs designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life. The very idea that he is condemning, he has taken advantage of.
TheZoo
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
TheZoo 
Sam the unlicensed handyguy is THE symbol of why Republicans lost this election.
Fraud, deception, lies, innuendo and hypocrisy.
When they’re ready to address the nation’s problems in an honest open fashion, we should extend our hand in friendship. Until then, they can fark off.
I see how it is.
Joe the Plumber paid into the welfare system, but he’s the ONLY one to have done so.
I expect he’ll be turning down his Social Security checks when he’s 65. Yeah right…
Good Morning Lady Z and RUCerious…Listening to this guy is like listening to my two reich winged neighbor’s…It make’s my head ache and ear’s ring with all their nonsence…..Surely there must be a medication to fix them…Blessings
Paid into welfare? Did Joe the pretend plumber pay welfare insurance? Welfare insurance does not exist. Welfare is social assistance. It is a wealth distribution in practice. Joe, you socialist leech!
I think this guy is one of the TP trolls. He’s got the same inane logic, and “answers” a question by changing the subject.
Virtually every sentence from his mouth is just too stupid to be worthy of analysis.
Joe, you’re now on minute #16. Buh-bye.
Joe the Plumber was supposed to be a shill for McCain but that boat has sailed. Why would anyone interview him now?
Maybe they had already paid him to show up and cheer the McCain victory.
I’m sure now that McCain and Palin have some free time they’re going to spend a lot of time looking out for Samjoe’s welfare.
What a maroon.
So, let me get this straight:
Not Joe the Not Plumber:
1. Collected Welfare
2. Owes Back Taxes
and
3. is against spreading the wealth.
And he’s the spokesman for the Republican Party, one whom we should all emulate?
Priceless.
I was talking to my friend the other day, when the conversation turned to this jaggoff. My friend was like “Did you hear the latest from Joe the Plumber.” I said “His name is Sam, not Joe. He does not have a Plumbers license. And to top it off, he owes back taxes. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he is on welfare.”
Well, what do you know?
The hits just keep on coming Spudge Boy.. It just never ends with the Republican Party.. They sure know how to pick a mascot.. LOL
I’ll take Joe the Plumber’s tax cut. The IRS can include Joe’s tax cut along with my tax cut.
What an idiot. Joe the Plumber is a loser and we should just ignore him, make him irrelevant.
“It was Joe’s parents that were on welfare, what kind of control does he have over that? I betting whoever owns this blog, didn’t exist in the late seventies or early eighties. Yep, welcome to the economy that isn’t inflated up by the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Do your homework kid! Try looking up the “community reinvestment act” of 1977 on wikipedia. Be sure and read all the twists and turns that have changed the “CRA” since then.”
If what you say is true, “Joe”, then Samuel J. Wurzelbacher is a liar. To defend his being on welfare (and I’m sure Colmes would have been clearer on that if it was when Joe was a child), Joe claims that he “paid into it.” As mentioned above, he obviously did no such thing, as there is no paying into the Welfare system (like there is Social Security). And if he was a child at the time, then he clearly paid noting into the system.
Either way, the man being interviewed in the video is a liar.
Obviously this Joe is as bright as Joe the Plumber. I was already divorced by 1977 and I wasn’t on welfare, nice try. Then again I’m not the one who thinks everybody is a welfare cheat. Joe the Plumber is.
Love your blog! Keep up the great work! 🙂 As for “Joe the Plumber,” it’s nice to see him get exposed this way. If anyone is even still paying attention to him anymore — other than for amusement purposes, that is. And Colmes is really growing a pair, finally! I love it!
A citizen should not be investigated for asking a question.
haha “I read the Karl Marx entry in Webster’s dictionary, I know Marxism” LOL
Well, that’s the point. Taking money from some people and giving it to people who do not have money is called welfare. The only problem Republicans had was that Obama calls it a tax cut. Sure, people can vote for extending welfare and undoing the Clinton welfare reform, but it is dishonest to call it a tax cut. That’s all.
Thanks azsunpower 🙂 We appreciate you coming to the Zoo.
“Taking money from some people and giving it to people who do not have money is called welfare”
I think more to the point is that we currently have corporate welfare with the bailout. Why not help families feed themselves? What is so wrong with that? I would imagine that a large percent of people on welfare don’t want to be there.
I suppose you don’t think people should get Pell Grants either? What a douche.
http://politicalthirdrail.wordpress.com/
Wait, wait, wait a minute. If I am to understand this, it was revealed that he was on welfare, how is that we know whether a private citizen is on welfare or not? Aren’t those private government records, wouldn’t they have to have been leaked by someone in the welfare department? So why is it that its ok for the press to demand welfare records from Joe the Plumber but its not ok to release Obama’s original birth certificate to put to bed once and for all this question of his citizenship? Am I the only one who sees a complete double standard here?
Colmes finally wins an argument … with a plumber! Way to colmes, your years of jounalism education has finally paid off.
Wiseman, you make some very astute points.
We need to investigate Joe the plumber but not the president. Because why again … oh yeah, he might ask an unstaged question.
Perhaps Joe’s actions are not entirely consistent with his beliefs- or, rather, his past actions are not consistent with his current beliefs- but this in no way invalidates the fact that involuntary wealth redistribution- in all of its varied forms- is theft and thus wrong.
Consider the following. S is an habitual liar. In fact, Q knows S is a liar, yet Q overhears S tell P that, “Lying is wrong, thus one ought not tell lies.” Does the fact that S often tells lies mean that what he told P is not true, and that Q would do well to not take S’s advice? I should say no. S may be a hypocrite, but what he told P is true nonetheless.
S is a habitual liar – we don’t believe anything he says.
Too bad you do, Aaron.
Nice post here on the Zoo.
Will someone please put a sock in Sammy? The idea of the “working class, Joe the Plumber” was great, but no one really wants to hear from him!
I hope his 15 minutes are almost over…
Zooey,
Come now, are you intentionally missing the point? I am sure that at some point in your life you have cheated- if only a minor infraction- at some game, say, Monopoly. Now, since you once cheated does it mean that if you were to tell your child, “It is wrong to cheat, so do not do so,” your child should not take your advice, or, what is more, that what you told your child is any less true than if you were moral saint?
Witty remarks only get you so far…
Dude, I am not against welfare or Pell Grants. I am simply saying that Obama refers to what people usually call welfare as “tax cuts”. If he were honest, he would call these tax credits to people who pay no taxes welfare and then voters could tell him what they think of that.
LOL.How quaint, troll’s on patrol defending a shill by the phony name of Joe that worked for mccrazy’s campaign…It’s like a bad cold, a gift that keep’s making every one sick…..Well germ’s you lost, and so did the looser joe…Get over it, play nice and post something of value instead of the same old junk your bunch has been peddleing for 8 miserable year’s…..
Witch,
I imagine your wonderfully poignant post was directed towards me. Interestingly enough, I am not a republican, nor did I vote for McCain. With that said, I did not vote for Obama, either. So, besides the ad hominems, Witch, you can either address the issue or not play nice…
P.S. I voted for Bob Barr
Aaron
With all respect, why would anyone vote for Bob Barr?
I can’t in good conscience vote for a republican or democrat.
And we did reform welfare. No longer you can sit on your ass and receive checks until Kingdom Come. Now you have to get a job and you cannot receive checks for more than 6 years. Clinton reformed it and that was great.
Now Obama wants to reinstate the original welfare system in which people get checks from some other people simply because, without conditions and without end in sight. He calls them “tax credits” to people who do not pay any taxes, but in fact they are the old, unreformed version of welfare than encouraged people to spend their lifetime in poverty. Way to go, Captain O!
I understand that but why Barr? I still can’t believe the Libertarians even put such a nonLibertarian on the ticket. I will admit that I think must Libertarians are full of shit to to begin begin with though.
And why would I defend Joe the Plumber? What did he do wrong? As far as I can tell, his only fault mentioned in the post is that he went on welfare, but I thougth that you people do not see that as a bad thing.
You have an interesting take on Libertarians…
Besides that, I agree, Bob Barr was not my first choice for the Libertarian presidential nomination.
Does just being a meathead count?
I have yet to met a Libertarian that did not fall into one of two categories
It appears Joe the Plumber (JTP) has one more experience to write and sing about. Between the liens, tax evasion, divorce, and impersonating a plumber, he has at least 5 good country songs to jump start his career.
For the record for you dittohead Limbaugh listeners, Obama produced his birth certificate and the State of Hawaii certified that it was accurate. That being said, his mother was born in Kansas. Even if he had been born out of the country, which he was not, he would still be considered a citizen. Go to the State Department website and look it up.
Also, he never said anything about giving tax breaks to people who don’t pay taxes. Social Security recipients just got the biggest cost of living increase ever do to the increase in cost of living. Welfare recipients did not and Obama has never said anything about giving it to them. What he said is that people who pay INCOME taxes under $250k would get more money back and those that pay over would pay slightly more.People who receive welfare and those that earn under $10k a year don’t pay income taxes. That means they’re not eligible for a “tax break” get it? And EVERYBODY pays sales taxes but poor people pay a higher percentage of their cash on hand than anybody. Sales tax and interest on debt used to be deductible but it hasn’t been since Reagan/Bush. What exactly do you think poor people are getting.
Why, why, why don’t this man just go away. He falls for this everytime. How long will it take before he realizes that he is the crowned Mr. LaughingStock and Palin is crowned Mrs. LaughingStock. Save yourself, save what sliver of pride you have left, save your morals, and fade back into the pipes from which you robocall, oops, I mean rotorooter.
“Now Obama wants to reinstate the original welfare system in which people get checks from some other people simply because, without conditions and without end in sight. He calls them “tax credits” to people who do not pay any taxes, but in fact they are the old, unreformed version of welfare than encouraged people to spend their lifetime in poverty.” – dadatroll
He never said anything about reinstating the original welfare system. He didn’t say anything about it at all. Find us a part of one speech where he said anything about enhancing welfare, I dare you. What you heard it your hate radio assclown making shit up.
I agree with the dear witch – it is fascinating to see people actually defending this guy who has proven nothing but his total ignorance of the issues he is discussing.
Please stop whining that the MSM is picking on the poor plumber. This guy is milking his unearned celebrity for all he can. That’s his right, but he gives up all claims to privacy in the process. You don’t hire a publicist unless it is your intent to make your life… PUBLIC.
I mean, don’t you defenders actually listen to what this moron is saying? The stupidity starts with the very first sentence, where he (erroneously) equates Obama with Marxism and (erroneously) states that socialistic policies are inherently incompatible with democracy. The guy is simply incoherent.
dadatroll: Can you please point me to the documentation where Obama is planning to give tax credits to those who pay no taxes? I’m not going to call you out as wrong just yet – I want to see the evidence of it first. Bear in mind that McCain’s health care “plan” called for a $5000 tax credit. Should we also assume that this credit would have gone to those who pay no taxes?
joe: It’s usually a good idea not to make pronouncements out of total ignorance, unless you want to make a fool of yourself. This blog is not “owned” by an individual but rather by a large group of authors (see “Critters”), and while we would all like to be young whipper-snappers as you assume, unfortunately you could not be more wrong.
Shayne,
You and I both know that that challenge will be conveniently ignored or a best a warped nonevidentiary opinion will be offered up as a fact.
What? Everything he says is wrong.
What do you mean “you people”? At what point did you become an authority on what anyone on this blog thinks? You just like to make up shit as you go along?
Ignored db? I hadn’t though of that. I expected some quote for Hannity or maybe some Limbaugh audio.
I threw the comment out there and if you reached to catch it I guess by your choice your it…Not Joe, Joe has had his 15 minute’s..Owe’s back taxe’s or fine’s, is not a plumber, collected welfare and is as dumb as a box of rock’s..
What President Obama will do on any issue will be 99% better than the worst president in our history, bush, has done…I’m looking forward to a better 8 year’s in our future….From your post I read what you are thinking…
I’m sort of broke Shayne but if you fancy a wager…
dadatroll, where are you?
Are you doing the googles on the internets trying to find evidence for your claims? Come on back, we miss you.
Just make sure the quotes you post come directly from Obama as published by a real source (like his web site) and not from Limbaugh or Hannity.
Here, dadatroll, let me help you out:
http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/
I’m lookin’ for the part where he recreates the welfare state, or where he gives tax credits to those who pay no taxes… but I’m not findin’.
When you find it, please let us know.
Otherwise, a retraction would be a nice gesture.
I am willing to up my ante on the zero response wager…
I am also sort of wondering if dadatroll understand dada…
Aaron, please excuse the sidetrack, so about this libertarianism thing, might you explain to me how a sincere organization which claims to stand for something might pick a guy who is the antithesis of the very whatever it is they claim to be and expect to be taken seriously?
*** crickets ***
C’mon dadatroll… I can’t wait forever.
We’re patient dittoheads, we can wait.
gorn,
perhaps you thumped your chest a little too vigorously and scared em off out of the clearing…
Well, shoot, can’t a gorilla have a little fun?
Tell you what, dada, I have to log out for awhile, so you can come back to the jungle and post your evidence. I’ll check back later tonight to get my enlightenment.
I just sent a truck load of Lobster to my favorite ape….Your number one…Blessings
very thoughtful witch1 even though you must have gotten a deal on those bugs. Current lobster prices continue to amaze me. In my experience in that industry I have never seen a situation like this…
BTW:
Did old SamJoe not realize he was going on the tele? Why the hell did they feel the need to dress up Ms. Palin but SamJoe has to be T-shirt clad to play the little pretend game? What a freakin’ smuck to allow himself to be played so. Even a plumer’s gopher puts on something a little better for the cameras unless of course he has been told not to. What a stupidly crafted charade.
Dbadass, I know…About once a year I pick up a tiny lobster tail and small filet and fix them at home, not this year…The tiny one’s were over $9.00 each last month…Gorn’s worth a truck load…As you all are……Blessings
witch1:
I hate to admit it but I can buy live ME lobster not those weird spiny ones for just around 3/#. It is sort of ridiculous and I feel for the fisherman
wow, we must have made the big-time. full-on troll onslaught on the side of Not Joe the Not Plumber.
lobster…mmmmmm….
Well, if that’s the best the conservobots can do, it’s no wonder they got their clocks cleaned for the second election in a row.
dbadass
BTW:
Did old SamJoe not realize he was going on the tele? Why the hell did they feel the need to dress up Ms. Palin but SamJoe has to be T-shirt clad to play the little pretend game?
It’s like he was trying to be Jason Dawes from Ghost Hunters, on Sci-Fi Channel. And you’re right. Why spend all this money spiffing up Palin only to have this mendicant wannabe showing up like he just woke up on Skid Row?
Okay, maybe not that bad. 😉
Not that I think Jason Dawes of Ghost Hunters looks like a mendicant wannabe.
He is a fine family man, and I respect him for what he does. And he does entertain me. And he dresses appropriately for his ghost-hunting work. It just apparently involves wearing a lot of t-shirts and jeans. 🙂
The Stone Cold Steve Austin part still troubles me. Well, that plus the made up part. Atleast professional wrestling is real…
Basically, anything not backed by Barack Obama was either a sham or an attack against Barack Obama.
Even the Kool Aid Fumes are toxic.
It’s interesting that the fools keep harping on the Obama birth certificate. It is a finished issue.
The state has the original birth certificate — just like the state has everyone’s birth certificate. The birth certificate parents get is a certified copy. The state certifies that it is a true and correct copy of the certificate on file. That is serious business. No state employee is going to falsify a certification, because it’s simply not worth it — it’s too easily checked.
Barack Obama was born to an American woman in the state of Hawaii, which is a state in the United States. He’s an American, and the President-elect.
Get used to it.
BTW, I never heard a peep about John McCain’s birth certificate, and he was born in Panama.
That may be just because there was sort of an understanding/unwritten rule that no interests would be served by subjecting the citizens to a campaign ad with that god awlful Van Halen song as the basis
Dammit. Now it’s in my head.
I’ll get you for that, db.
As fopr McCain’s birth to American parents serving in the US Military and stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, it might be, by internatuional treaty, I guess, accepted that such a situation is akin to being born in an embassy compound. You would be a citizen of the embassy’s country, whatever it was.
What I am unaware of is any test of this issue before the Supreme Court where, since it would be a constitutional issue, it would have to be brought.
Panamah ha ha ha…Panama…
Sorry Wayne, I was just being a dick…
He wants to give tax cuts to 95% of people, right? You heard this, right? It was in the news, no? Now, 40% of people do not pay taxes. So, how will Obama reduce these people’s taxes? Simply: just give them tax credits, i.e. checks. Is this not welfare, but not the TANF that we have now, but the AFDC that we had before Clinton.
McCain’s checks suck too, but at least they are not welfare: everybody will get them, not only the poor.
But the point of your post is that Joe is against welfare, even though he himself benefited from it. But that’s a non sequitur. I am pretty sure that you agree with the German people who condemn Hitler, even though most of them drive on the autobahns he built.
Hi dadatroll
I drew the short straw and got stuck having to wait around in case you showed up with no actual stuff to support the other stuff you claimed but instead some weird other transitional stuff which still doesn’t cut it. Sorry to be the one. Since everyone is probably sleeping already, might I suggest that you really think shit through and look at all the potential places it might be vulnerable before you post it. It might help.
95% of working people, you dolt.
McCain lost. He’ ain’t sending out no special non-welfare checks. Get over it.
Joe the Non-Plumber is a hypocritical simpleton, and so are you, dadatroll.
Sorry, db. I didn’t mean to cut in on your troll patrol. 😉
What he said was 95% of the people WHO PAY TAXES would get a tax break. Why is that so confusing for you. And while the Germans do in fact drive on the autobahns they don’t condemn others for driving on them. But this is a put on right, you can’t possible be this stupid.
There’s enough stupid on that troll for us to share isn’t there?
Shit, why the hell are you people still awake. Oh I know… You ladies are already so pretty you need no beauty rest….
40% of working people pay no taxes. You’d know that if you were, like, working adults that fill out the 1040 every year. You know, how the credits add up and at the end you have to pay no taxes. Ask your parents.
Now, ordinarily, you could not lower the taxes these people pay any longer, since they are at zero already. Obama, yes he can, cause he will give them tax credits that are refundable. As factcheck.org (not Fox News) says: “”You can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability.” That’s true enough.”
But the point is, one could in principle be against something, like Joe, even if he benefited from that thing, no? If I steal from old, sick people, and I send you a gift, and you bought icecream (cause I do not believe you are old enough to be allowed to buy booze) with the money I stole, would that make you forever unable to protest stealing money from old, sick people?
“40% of working people pay no taxes.”
WTF?
Only if they’re working under the table. Social Security (a tax) hits everyone who has earned income.
And tax money is redistributed (spread) all the time. Somehow, it’s ok to spread the wealth through no-bid contracts and pay corporations billions with no accountability. That means corporations get paid whether they do the work or not. It’s ok for taxpayers to pick up the tab when speculators go bust. But if a blue-collar worker gets laid off, it would be stealing from someone who’s working to help his family out.
Get real. How we treat the least of our citizens marks our moral compass. And if we don’t invest in our own citizens, who will?
If our greatest resource is the American Worker, that resource is being underutilized. Jobs are sent overseas, profits sent to offshore accounts.
8 years of Bush has bankrupted this country. It may take the rest of my life, maybe even longer, to repair the damage done by Republican Rule.
No one, not even liberals, wants to take money from a working class family and give it to someone who is able-bodied but refuses to go to work. But liberals do believe that those who have profited the most from the opportunities of this great country owe a debt to this land of opportunity to invest in all her citizens, so that all may truly participate in this thing called capitalism and democracy; the American Dream.
Peace and Blessings.
But the point is, one could in principle be against something, like Joe, even if he benefited from that thing, no? If I steal from old, sick people, and I send you a gift, and you bought icecream (cause I do not believe you are old enough to be allowed to buy booze) with the money I stole, would that make you forever unable to protest stealing money from old, sick people?
I baught chatty kathy doll’s for the kid’s year’s ago, pull the string and it repeated over and over the same phrases untill a week later and then they just kept saying one little phrase, ” Hello I’m chatty kathy”…Troll’s are a lot like that, yah! they are….LOL…..Night critter’s…P.B. & J.
Joe the Plumber is exactly right. It’s a government program that HE PAID FOR. Do you drive on roads? Do you walk down sidewalks? Those are government services THAT YOU PAID FOR. If you aren’t paying for those things, then it’s stealing. He’s absolutely right.
I am repeating that because nobody addresses it.
The whole point of the post is that since Joe benefited from welfare he should not be against welfare. But that is pure crap. If I somehow benefited from somebody beating up baby seals can I still be against beating up baby seals, or me getting a benefit disqualifies my anti-beating up baby seals opinion?
I already tried to help you from looking like a fool when I told you that the people here are not children. Yet you persist. You are talking to people ranging from 40 – 75 years old. We are not impressed with you. I’ve been paying taxes for thirty years and have owned three profitable, tax-paying, employing businesses, so spare me your smartmouth attitude that we are ignorant children. Based on what you’ve posted so far, you have nothing to teach us, but much to learn.
And I call bullshit on you. I asked you, very politely, for a pointer to where your information came from. Don’t give me “factcheck.org”. Give me an actual link. Otherwise, you’re full of shit.
Well, I’m not going to wait for you to do it. Here is the page on factcheck.org:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_welfare.html
Naturally, you took the quote out of context. Basically, factcheck is calling your argument bullshit too. The Obama plan is no more welfare than McCain’s proposed refundable tax credit for health care. Is he a Marxist too or not? Actually, it would make McCain more of a Marxist than Obama, because his proposed check would be much larger.
Any credits in the Obama plan apply only to TAXPAYERS. There are other kinds of Federal tax than income tax.
Further, factcheck explains:
“Congressional Budget Office figures show that even those in the lowest-earning fifth of households pay an effective federal tax rate, on average, of 4.3 percent of their income, despite benefiting from existing federal refundable tax credits to a major degree. This group had average income of $15,900 in 2005, the most recent year for which CBO has done the calculations. But despite receiving “a federal check” through the income tax system that boosted income by an average of 6.5 percent (this shows up as a negative tax rate in the CBO tables), they still paid an average of $600 in federal taxes. That’s true even after subtracting the effects of refundable tax credit “welfare.” ”
If you continue to press this same discredited point, you are truly nothing but a troll looking for an argument.
“The whole point of the post is that since Joe benefited from welfare he should not be against welfare.” – dadatroll
No, the point is that since he benefited from welfare, he ought to not pontificate about wealth redistribution and socialism. Unless he pays back every dime that he collected, he is just another Republican hypocrite and should just shut his piehole.
I’ve never collected dime one from the Feds in welfare, so I could pontificate if I want to. But, my mother did at one point, and I got some educational grants. Both of those payouts from the Feds have been paid back many times over. If that’s the evil of socialism, you’ll have to explain to me what the problem is.
I propose that welfare is not a problem. Welfare abuse is a problem. I trust you understand the distinction.
You people crack me up.
The guy paid into the system. The only way to get HIS money back is to use the system. Now you condemn him for that? You say that he BENEFITED? How do benefit and welfare even go in the same sentence? The money comes from tax money, money taken from the people.
All he did was take back some of the money that HE PAID IN. The government took his money. The only way to get it back was to participate.
Ignorance really is rampant in this country. Mob rule is firmly taking hold. And ignorance is the new wisdom. We are now seeing a China-like approach to government and we don’t even see it before our own eyes.
Long live the People’s Republic of America!
On Bob Barr–I’m a Libertarian. Left the Republican party the day we invaded Iraq. I acutally was a Ron Paul girl. Fiscal conservative with social progression. There are a lot of us out here. Really. I’m actually thrilled Obama won, I think it will spread hope and give us kudos back in the world (which we need after Bush), but I did vote for Barr.
Questions,
How much did Not Joe pay into the welfare system?
How much did Not Joe receive from the welfare system?
Did Not Joe receive more from the welfare system at the time he was on welfare than what he had paid into it prior to collecting?
Is the welfare system acceptable if it is limited to those who have paid into it, thus becoming a government-forced savings account?
If social programs are unacceptable, why is the spokesperson against them someone who is using and abusing the system?
Not-Joe thrust himself into the limelight by asking a loaded question and now must face the scrutiny of that limelight. This “every man’s man” owes back taxes. Republicans held him up to be the model for all of us.
Now, to get to the troll’s point, and past the troll’s false analogies.
If you benefit from a social program, it is hypocritical to then argue against that program. You would seek to deny others the very benefit that helped you in hard times. That is the epitomy of selfishness.
If we hold selfishness to be a prized American Value, then Ebenezer Scrooge is our role model. He was, after all, an excellent businessman, very successful, and very rich. Just remember, in Scrooge’s day, Not-Joe would be in debtor’s prison.
The point is that Joe who is not a plumber received the benefit of a program, which was obviously needed at the time. No one holds that against him.
The problem occurs when he bad mouths the program, and other people receiving the benefit. He hasn’t walked in their shoes, so he can just shut the fuck up.
It’s called empathy. Try it sometime.
You might want to ask Joe why he’s allowing us to carry his burden while he’s failing to pay his taxes. We all “pay into” the welfare system with our tax dollars, not just you idiots who are whining about it.
I know that he said 95% of TAXPAYERS, but 40% of TAXPAYERS pay no taxes.
Ok, now I understand the “dada” in your “dadatroll”!
Why are you so fucking dense?
Is it so hard to understand that he means 95% of those who pay taxes?
Get it? If only 60% of people pay taxes, then 95% of THEM will get a tax cut.
I love all those cute little buggy avatar’s that our recent visetor put’s up with his/her post’s…Kinda remind’s me of those little bug’s my biolegy teacher use to have us look at through the microscope..LOL..Our teacher would have us go to a stagnet pond and collect them in the water..Who knew 50 year’s later I would be reading what they had to say…
Good Morning Dear Lady Z…..Blessings are on the way…
Good morning, Great Lady. 🙂
Those bug/monster avatars are generated by WordPress whenever someone doesn’t have their own avatar. It’s amazing how suited they are to some….
Indeed, good point Lady Z…Blessings
“I know that he said 95% of TAXPAYERS, but 40% of TAXPAYERS pay no taxes.”
He did NOT say 95% of everybody residing in the US did he? Is English your second language duhduh?
I realize that i may be fresh meat by stating an opinion here. First off I did vote for Obama, I feel that it will be a new day for Washington and our country. I am 25 years old and this was my first year voting. I have alot of strong emotion about the current state of the economy and the War, so i felt it neccesary to cast my voice, and still do.
My opinion is that most people “paying into” programs like welfare don’t ever get the opportunity to benefit from them. If Sam needed to use the program for a legitimate reason… fantastic! It sounds a little more like he felt that because his money went into the program, he deserved it use the program whether he needed it or not. Considering that he claimed to be in a $250,000 taxable income bracket I really doubt he needed the support.
I dont mind putting money into programs that the American people need to survive… not abuse.
I really hope that my ignorance isn’t glaring here, I realize that these are simply my OPINION and not solid FACT.
“All he did was take back some of the money that HE PAID IN. The government took his money. The only way to get it back was to participate.”
Everydaydud, it’s not like you folks to be so honest about your actions. This is exactly why more money goes back to red states than they pay into the federal government and less money goes to blue states than they pay in. States like Kentucky that are still red where all the white folks are on welfare and food stamps because one year they had a job and now they’re going to game the system. People like Joe the Plumber who are underachievers that blame everybody else for their failures. That’s so Republican.
Pretty simple.
Guy asks rhetorical question in front of national camera, someone starts asking questions of him, finds out what can happen when you stick yourself in the public eye. Fair or not, it is the way it is…Dont’ want to be investigated? don’t ask rhetorical questions in front of the national media….
He knew the answer before he asked. He was either a plant, or seeking attention…either way, he got what was coming and hopefully others will learn a lesson as to not follow the same path, unless it is the one they seek.
You see, you play with fire, it’s fun, but you can get burned, not fair, but that’s the way it is, you can’t change it, so either be prepared, or don’t play with fire…
End of analysis.
Thanks ev. Maybe it is my art family but no one else picked up on the dada thing when I mentioned it last night…
jr10electro – Joe the Plumber claimed that he was going to buy his bosses business some day and that business “made” $250k a year. However that is just a figure his boss gave him reflecting annual receipts no doubt. However, you don’t pay taxes on receipts you pay it on net profits.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt and his boss did make $250k profits, Joe would not. He would have to buy the business and would have payments of principal and interest on the business loan to do so that his boss does not so he would still benefit from tax cuts.
Thanks for setting me straight on the annoying little monster thingies. I was wondering why someone might select those things. How’d the tests go? Still everyone’s favorite straight A nontraditional student…
Maybe tzugidan but nobody started investigating Joe until McCain kept mentioning him at the debate. It was McCain who thrust him into the media not the rhetorical question he asked Obama.
And once he hired a publicist, that’s the person who gets him these interviews, and started appearing as an “expert” all bets are off aren’t they.
okay, that means that there has been a LOT of theoritical situations for him to see McCain’s point of view.
I really never felt for a second that McCain’s had any concept of middle class or blue collar.
totally irrelevant i know but that how this “winner” got into focus to begin with. Poor guy doesn’t realize he was a patsy, i has really taken some judgements off of McCain though…
well played 😛
“40% of TAXPAYERS pay no taxes.” – dadatroll
You’re making my head hurt. How does one pay taxes without paying taxes? Please explain.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
classic… 🙂
“The guy paid into the system. The only way to get HIS money back is to use the system.” – everydaydood
I see. So his principles only go as far as his bank account. If he really believed in his principles, shouldn’t he have not signed up to get the checks? Nobody FORCES you to take welfare, you know. He should have been able to get a job scrubbing toilets, right? Or maybe he couldn’t get a job, so you are you saying it’s okay to take welfare as an alternative to starvation? In which case you are in favor of welfare?
“How do benefit and welfare even go in the same sentence? The money comes from tax money, money taken from the people.”
If you buy homeowner’s insurance and your house burns down, you benefit from the fact that you had been paying all those years into homeowner’s insurance, don’t you?
“All he did was take back some of the money that HE PAID IN.”
So you think welfare is a government mandated savings account? Wow.
“Ignorance really is rampant in this country. Mob rule is firmly taking hold. And ignorance is the new wisdom. We are now seeing a China-like approach to government and we don’t even see it before our own eyes.”
I’m impressed with all the ironies built into this paragraph. Thank god people like you did not pick our president this time around, for a change.
jr10electro, it is pretty entertaining once you know the facts isn’t it. As a small business owner for the last 12 years I’d be thrilled to have to pay taxes on $250k profits and my receipts are way over what the plumber makes. That being said the tables show that if you make $250k profits a year your taxes go up $900. I can live with that.
Right, Shayne. And as I’ve mentioned before, if this business nets $250k / year in taxable income, the purchase value for the business would probably be around $1.5 million. The thought that not-Joe, the tax-dodging welfare queen, could purchase such a business is really amusing. Even if he had the wealth to buy the business, or the savings and track record required to qualify for the required loan, his acquisition costs would offset his $250k net income for years and he would pay no taxes accordingly, or if there was taxable income it would be well below $250k at least for awhile, and during that time he will pay less taxes under Obama. Thus, the Obama tax mix benefits small businesses during their startup and ramp-up years.
The right wing kooks think putting an (R) in front of your name somehow makes you smart about business, but clearly the opposite is true. Neither non-Joe nor the trolls on this thread actually understand what they are talking about.
db, living in Zurich helps. Have we chased him away?
Reminder to our guests: blog rules require comments to be on-topic. The topic of this thread is Joe the Plumber and welfare, not Barack Obama’s citizenship, health records, etc.
We have an open thread for comments that don’t fall under any other threads. And if you are going to submit a comment, please don’t make it the size of a novel, as it is disruptive to the flow of the discussion.
Thank you for your cooperation.
kdmask:
Might you explain to me how Barr is even remotely a social libertarian? Feel free to do so on the open thread as the Libertarian thing has strayed fairly far from the initial topic. Thanks-
Love Ya big ape gorn…Blessings
To Christopher Wiseman, whose lengthy comments have been removed:
I more or less agree with your opening paragraph. It’s a leap from that to the subsequent discussion about the “FairTax” being the best solution, but ok.
However, from that point you are going off-topic, so please take it to the open thread for any further discussion. Thanks.
But do bear in mind that this blog is not your personal soap box for promoting your run for political office, as you are planning to do in Nevada’s third Congressional district, correct? You have your own blog for that.
Gorn-
My apologies I will take an immodium for my diahreal blogging and try to stay on message. As far as moving to the open thread, I’ll wait for Saturday. I wouldn’t pretend to be able to compete with Monty Python, I know a losing battle when I see one.
As far as my soapbox goes, I just want to get as much input as I can from as many isles as I can and try to find enough consensus to make real change in the DC machine. I’m not a party apologist, I’m an American with a conscious and would like to give both parties a smack upside the head.
Allow me to repost re: JTP however. As the debate over his being on welfare and complaining is Obama’s tax plan is germaine to the larger issue of redistribution. JTP is red herring only an outward symptom of a tax system that is corrupted by both the GOP and Dems. As I mentioned, the corporate welfare doled out by Republicans and social welfare doled out by Democrats only goes to serve one purpose, mantain a built in constituency. If you buy off and maintain and underclass, of course they will support the party that gives them money, same is true of corporations, unions, etc. The one’s who always get squeezed are the ones in the middle who realize the least real benefits of all.
Thank you, Christopher.
I imagine we’re all agreed on the corporate welfare side of things. The other end – the type of welfare collected by non-Joe, is more debatable.
I have no philosophical problem with my tax dollars being used for providing a safety net against abject poverty. I may need it myself at some point, so as with other insurance it is a wise investment if done properly.
I do not want to see abuse of the system any more than I want to see fraud in any other type of insurance. Fraud does indeed happen in all forms of insurance, but that doesn’t make the concept of insurance wrong. Fraud can’t be fully eliminated, but it can be contained with proper rules and vigilant oversight.
I am no expert on these issues, but this is my gut feeling on the topic. I’ve known people who used welfare at one point or another (my mother being one of them), none of whom were frauds or cheats. They paid their taxes before and after, but needed some assistance for awhile in between.
So why is non-Joe against the insurance system that provided a safety net for him when he needed it? Perhaps the difference is, unlike my examples of proper welfare recipients, non-Joe scammed the system. He took welfare payments when he could, and then cheated on his taxes later on. He is an abuser of the system and has stolen from all of us. He is a fraud pontificating to people who are better than he is – honest taxpayers who don’t cheat the system.
Christopher, you said:
“If you buy off and maintain and underclass”
I do not for a moment believe that Barack Obama wants to maintain a permanent underclass. I see no logic in such a cynical assumption.
Given that an underclass would be miserable and unhappy pretty much by definition, I don’t see how such a policy would even make good political sense. By contrast, assisting an underclass to grow out of that status is not only a reasonable social goal, but a logical political goal.
Why does Joe the Non-Plumber attract so many weirdos?
This is pretty cool.
http://www.obama2008.eu/
Nice, Zooey.
Wow, the only reason Democrats want to help the downtrodden is to build a constituency? I’m not running for anything ever and I want to help the poor. Second have you ever been to a red state like say Kentucky? Do you have any ideal how large the percentage of welfare recipients among white people is? No I didn’t think so.
Also, you think the unions are for the sole purpose of creating constituency. I’m a business owner that gives union benefits and I think you need to do some research on what working conditions in this country were like before unions came along. And the weaker they get the more we fall into the same traps of the wealthy amassing huge amounts of money while working people lose spending power every day. That’s how we got in the doldrums we’re in right now.
But why am I even bothering. And it’s aisles.
Really Zooey, and I thought opposites were supposed to attract.
Shayne, our visitors might find this enlightening:
Click to access sr139.pdf
Page 2 reveals which states are net donors to the federal pie, and which are the net spenders.
There is a high correlation between states that are net donors and states that are “blue”. Conversely, there is a high correlation between states that are net takers and those that are “red”.
The biggest net donors are California, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, New Jersey, Nevada, Massechusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. These states voted blue. Other significant net givers include Wisconsin, Michigan, Delaware, and Washington.
The biggest welfare states – those that take more from the federal coffers than they contribute – include Alaska, Mississippi, Alabama, the Dakotas, West Virginia, and Montana. All red states. Other big net takers are the following red states: Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Idaho, Utah, Tennessee, and Arizona.
There are a few exceptions to the rule. Virginia, Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Maryland are significant net takers but voted blue in this election. I don’t see any real exceptions in the other directions – red states that are significant net donors.
Do any of our visitors see the irony that Democratic control seems to correlate with production while Republican control seems to correlate with welfare?
On a similar note, this site is really funny, though doubtless offensive to many:
http://www.fuckthesouth.com/
Don’t read it if you don’t have a humor bone.
or a fractured humerus
Go away Joe. You have embarrassed yourself enough. Please.
Gorn the link and letter to the south is priceess..Thank you for posting that…Blessings
I think Ben Franklin said it best: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. ”
Gorn:
I do not advocate the entire dismantling of the safety net system, nor do I agree with subjecting people to abject poverty because I don’t care. I have been on unemployment assistance before. I lived 2 summers in Nevada with no air conditioning in my car because I couldn’t afford to have it fixed. I also tried to pay back the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation when I started working again and was told that they have no mechanism for return of money unless it was repayment if I had fraudulently taken it. Needless to say I dropped that idea quickly.
I am all for proper rules and vigilant oversight but I see in large part neither from either party. What I would like reformed more than the idea of welfare, is the idea of entitlement and victimhood.
And I’m not talking just among the poor. I’m talking middle class and all the way up. Apparently my kids live in the United States of Instant Gratification and feel that they are entitled as a right to cell phones, mp3 players, laptops etc. and don’t feel that they should have to work as I do for the privilege.
Jeebers, Christopher. If your kids feel that way, I’m guessing it’s you who raised them thinking that way…
Perhaps not Obama personally but the Democratic Party has certainly made a constintuency out of social issues/welfare post 1965 Civil Rights. And not that that is a bad thing either, but I’m a cynic by nature because I recognize that there are many heartfelt well meaning liberals (my mom being one of them) but few in political power. There are in my estimation an equal ratio of on the other side of the isle. Dems blaming R’s as heartless and wanting to give tax breaks to big oil is about as helpful as R’s blaming D’s for tearing apart the fabric of society.
But consider this, if the poor and underclass are no longer underclass, and no longer depend on social programs and become integrated into the middle class, a significant platform of the Dem ideology is gone.
Which is the exact argument against R’s corporate welfare. If the rich/businesses are no longer unproportionately taxed and have no loopholes to hide money and no longer depend on “protection” who do the R’s pander to?
In my experience the young people who have the greatest sense of entitlement do not come from the low nor middle classes…
The Rs will always pander to the law information voters with “teh gay” and “baby killing.” Two things Rs would never want to have go away.
Shayne – I have been stationed in and seen many parts of North Carolina and West Virginia and seen what rural poverty looks like. I also grew up in the SF Bay Area and know first hand what its like to live on the numbered streets in downtown Oakland and neither are pretty. I’ve also known since the debates in 96 about welfare reform that per capita, whites receive welfare in greater numbers than minority groups and argued at the time that reform was certainly not racist.
Second, I am a huge fan of Samuel Gompers who founded the AFL. I have worked in a Union Shop as well. My dad used to teach small business management and would often refer to a case study in which (I believe) it was Ford that in an effort to increase productivity, was experimenting with different kinds and intensity lighting and kept very close track and often interview the workers. The conclusion was that simply by paying attention and caring about the employees and getting their input increased production regardless of the lighting.
Kudos to you for being a responsible corporate citizen. I love the goals and ideals of unions I regret that the need for them exists. Unchecked greed in the name of freemarket is no excuse for exploitation of workers. Were it not for shortsidedness of management the need and desire for unionizing would often not exist.
What I despise is not that unions exist but that the leadership of organized labor and politicians they bed with is just as corrupt as the boards of directors of enron, lehman etc. and the politicians they bed with.
Shayne – aisles, duly noted. I’m lost without spellcheck.
Gorn – I beg to differ “control” may be an oversimplification, right now both Nevada and California have R governors but both voted blue.
Zooey – Didn’t raise the kids that way but a by-product of “what about so in so” in the 4th grade got an iphone and lots of media input on the subject to boot. Hence my you want it, you earn it and just because you earn it, doesn’t mean there aren’t any rules response. Just because they feel that way certainly does not mean I give into it.
I raised two of my own. I know the drill.
Sure, Christopher, “control” is oversimplifying the situation. However, the trends are very real and should be the cause of some introspection and humility from the people on the right. History tells me that introspection and humility are not strong suits of people on the right.
And make no mistake that the California population overall is blue. I live in a very red part of the state, but overall it is quite blue. Our governator is a product of fame combined with a recall debacle, and is not your garden variety right wing demagogue.
Christopher, our justice system was set up under the premise that it’s better that 10 guilty men walk free than one innocent man go to prison. And our welfare is set up so that it’s better to feed 10 scoflaws than to let one child go hungry. Sure you can create all the oversight you want but then you’re paying more bureaucrats and feeding less people for the same money. No system is perfect. What it needs is for people to see that if they work they can do better than they can do not working. Right now, with healthcare a huge problem for working people it is often better for them to stay on welfare and get medicaid than to get a job and try to get health insurance.
And since wages for the working class and working poor have been diminishing the last 8 hears as well as for the middle class it doesn’t exactly provide much incentive for people to strive for something better.
California used to have free college for residents but Reagan got rid of that when he was governor. And since then the quality of education in that state has taken a beating. Why did he stop it, because he hated government. But the fact of the matter is that by providing college education you increase the amount of money you will received in taxes in a very short time and pay for the college. All this worrying about giving somebody something for nothing ends up with everybody getting less. If Reaganomics works why are we so screwed up right now.
People need to know that if they try it is worth it and when the only people getting ahead are the billionaires it doesn’t do much to get kids motivated.
Gorn, “History tells me that introspection and humility are not strong suits of people on the right.” I agree that you are half-right so to speak. History tells me that introspection and humility are not strong suits of ideologues regardless of what the belief. I will say this, so far in my blogging I’ve been challenged and debated but not personlly insulted despite my not so progressive approach to politics. That to me is the mark introspection and humility, hope to return the favor.
Moreover, this is the kind of dialogue I feel is so severely lacking in DC. As far as I can tell, no one here has a constituency to lose or is beholdent to any lobbyist or power broker. The only special interest aught be intellectual honesty and the merit of ideas. I believe the ends of most Americans are the same, the difference lay in the means to accomplish them.
Shayne, agreed checks and balances are critical. Agreed that children should not want for health care or food. Agreed that health care must become more affordable. I do not believe that either socialized medicine or complete privitization is the answer. I believe a hybrid model would be most effective wherein the government would sell a form of preventative health care insurance akin to flood insurance which would be at a reduced price that would be either fully deductible on taxes, or in the case of a flat tax the premiums would be included in an averaging of the poverty level.
Preventative health care would compliment private insurance and lower the overall cost as preventative medicine will lower the amount of reactive health care services that would be needed.
Same for higher education. Mind you I was a product of the California public school system in the Bay Area where n’er a Republican was to be found. Nonetheless my school district ‘lost’ $10 million declared bankruptcy and was placed into receivership for over 6 years. I believe if the GI Bill is availible to soldiers, it ought to be availible to those in Americorps, Peacecorps etc. The education should be free, but paid for with service to community and country and help instill a greater appreciation and dedication to eventual success.
“History tells me that introspection and humility are not strong suits of ideologues regardless of what the belief.”
Well, I would agree. The folks on this blog can attest that I’ve gotten into battles with some leftist ideologues who can be every bit as intransigent and arrogant as their counterparts on the right.
There are important differences, however. For one thing, those on the right have been in power for a very long time – really for most of the past 40 years, and have reached a special level of hubris during the past eight.
Second, the national demographics indicate that left-wing ideologues are a smaller minority than right-wing ideologues. Democrats require a larger coalition with centrists than have Republicans. the larger stake of the centrists I think keeps leftist ideology from going overboard. No so on the right.
Yes, I’m speaking in generalities, but that’s the way I see it. No way the Democrats can stay in power for a very long period of time unless they’re doing a really good job of governing. Republicans, as we’ve seen, can do a poor job yet remain in power. Only after they’ve really screwed the pooch repeatedly are they in danger of losing power. Think Nixon and W, who each had to drag the country to the very brink of disaster before getting kicked out, and contrast with Carter’s ineffectualness and Clinton’s crotch. Let’s face it, the bar for Republicans has been set far lower than that for Democrats. Had Palin been a Democrat with the same intellect but Democratic ideology, the Republicans would have taken 49 states.
Christopher you do realize that your ideas regarding higher education and public service are Obamas.
Ford and Bush Sr. really didn’t drag the country to the brink and they were handily wallopped. What bothers me though, is regardless of who’s in the Oval Office or Congress, its the money and power players that control the game more often then not. Reagan only really got into trouble with things when the predecessors to the neo-CON movement had their way. Same with Bush Sr. and Jr. and they were the ones who got rid of Gingrich and co. Honestly, Gingrich and Clinton needed each other and did more positive good together then I think they could have accomplished on their own.
Off course this is completely off topic, but you led the conversation there. With that have a good weekend and I’m looking forward to more rounds of intellectual boxing.
Shayne, first, I’ve personally been advocating a return to the draft for eight years including a method for conscientious objectors who weren’t comfortable taking up arms. Second, I’m not a right wing ideologue. I could care less who’s party came up with something, a good idea is a good idea and if Obama wants to run with it, more power to him. I now have one thing in common with him. Third, its actually part of the platform I’ve adotpted (aware that I am getting dangerously close to my soapbox). I haven’t posted the entire defense plank yet on my page but the relevant part is:
“The draft will be reinstated. In lieu of military service, service in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or a national medical or teaching corps may be rendered. A minimum of one year full time commitment or a 2 year “reserve” commitment will be required. A GI Bill equivalent will be extended to those who successfully complete their obligation and may additional benefits can be earned with additional service.”
If you’d like to check my site out or open a blog up here, I’d be happy to get more input and talk about it. And once again I’m completely off topic, but that seems to be my m.o. With that have a good weekend as well.
“Ford and Bush Sr. really didn’t drag the country to the brink and they were handily wallopped.”
Recall that Ford was merely finishing off Nixon’s aborted term and he paid the price for Nixon’s hubris. Bush Sr, I admit, is a different story. Let’s say he’s the exception that proves the rule. But even though he lost, Republicans still controlled Congress for 12 of the subsequent 14 years.
You are right that this has veered off topic, so I’ll leave it at that. Happy weekend.