Spread the Wealth Up?

The effect of Joe the Plumber continues…

In a recent satellite interview with Sen. Biden, the WFTV-Channel 9’s Barbara West did not pull any punches—costing her channel the ability to have any future interviews with the Obama campaign (there had been one scheduled).  Why?  Because she asked some questions that challenged the #2 pick with some of the right wing talking points in an effort to get a reaction.  Not the typical softballs that were expected.

The Interview

Spreading the Wealth

The thing that really stuck out with me in this interview was the way that the talking points have changed to try to take the edge off of the McCain campaign’s new focus on Sen. Obama’s tax plan.

But come on…  The part where Sen. Biden says that Sen. McCain’s plan (and President Bush’s tax plan) currently “spread the wealth up?”  I mean, how exactly does that work?

It’s not like the government takes in money and then hands it back to the wealthiest Americans.  In fact, the “Bush tax cuts” adjusted tax rates before payment—exactly the opposite of raising taxes on the rich to give money to the “middle class.”

The Mythical Middle Class and the W-4

And just who is the middle class that will have their taxes dropped anyway?  With my three children it wasn’t until this year that I was paying any federal income tax—and though my coworker does pay some, he really doesn’t know how much he should pay because he isn’t filling out his W-4 correctly.

In fact, there are many people that don’t change their W-4 when they have children, or intentionally leave it with 0 exemptions in order to get a lump sum in March.  It’s stupid¹, but they do it.  So, will these people see their taxes drop?  Sure—but they shouldn’t have been paying that much in the first place.

Do these people really need more taxes cut, or do they need to start filling out their forms properly?

So who is the middle class that is paying taxes that Sen. Obama is going to cut?  And if the upper class doesn’t have money to pay for the middle class jobs, won’t this great tax cut for them be moot because they won’t have an income because they won’t have a job.

Spreading the Wealth

The phrase “spreading the wealth” is so devastating, and anyone who’s played the classic game of Life totally understands it.  In the classic game, there were these little white cards and one of them was “Share the Wealth” which entitled you to take a portion of what someone else earned from the space that they just landed on.  It was great if you had the card, it was awful (unless you had the appropriate cancel card) if you were the one that expected that money.

What Sen. McCain and Pres. Bush did was to allow the player to keep more of their money—what Sen. Obama wants to do is to play one of those cards on everyone—even if that someone turns out to be you.

I mean, what a great incentive to work hard and pursue the American dream where when you get to a certain point the government’s going to say when you make too much and start to give it to someone else.

Is this really the change we need?

1. They’re not making interest on the money and they’re letting the government hold it all that time. [↩]