Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), in his opening appearance with Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL), tried to trash Senator John McCain (R-AZ), by pointing to Mr McCain’s family wealth:
I don’t have to tell you that. You see it in your shrinking wages. … We cannot afford to keep giving tax cuts after tax cuts to big corporations and wealthiest Americans, while middle class families are falling behind. […]
Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there every night after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you’re worried about being able to pay the bills. Well ladies and gentlemen, that’s not a worry that John McCain has to worry about. It’s a pretty hard experience — he’ll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.
Now, I rather doubt that Mr Biden has to sit at his kitchen table and talk with his wife “about how much (he’s) worried about being able to pay the bills.” He is actually one of the poorest senators, with a net worth of somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000.¹ His Senate salary is $165,200 and he makes $20,500 a year from teaching a Saturday morning law course at Widener University. Unlike most lawmakers, he doesn’t have a home in the Washington metropolitan area, but commutes via Amtrak from Washington to Wilmington. Still, if the man can’t pay his bills on that amount, when the vast majority of Americans have to pay the bills on far less, he has a problem.
But, as Mr Biden raises such criticisms, one wonders if he’s ever heard of George Hussein Onyango Obama, the half-brother of the presumptive 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. It seems that George Obama lives in the slum outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, on something like a dollar a month. I don’t know if George Obama even has a kitchen table.
It isn’t like the junior senator from Illinois doesn’t know about his half-brother; they’ve met twice before. Why is it, then, that the man of Hope and Change can’t spare any change for his own half-brother, to give him some hope?
Well, it hasn’t been just to George Obama that the prospective Democratic presidential nominee has been less than charitable. The Chicago Tribune went through the Obamas’ income tax returns, and discovered that:
- In 2002, the year before Obama launched his campaign for U.S. Senate, the Obamas reported income of $259,394, ranking them in the top 2 percent of U.S. households, according to Census Bureau statistics. That year the Obamas claimed $1,050 in deductions for gifts to charity, or 0.4 percent of their income. The average U.S. household totaled $1,872 in gifts to charity in 2002, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.²
What’s $1,050? Well, in 2002 the Obamas didn’t live in Washington, but in Chicago, where they presumably attended the Trinity United Church of Christ; if all of their charitable contribution sin 2002 went to TUCC, that would be an average of $20.19 a week in the collection plate.
All of a sudden, then-Vice President Al Gore’s charitable contributions of $353 in 1998 doesn’t seem all that miserable! 
Of course, once the Obamas decided that he would run for the United States Senate, and bigger things he hoped, then it was time to increase the charitable contributions:
- The national average for charitable giving has long hovered at 2.2 percent of household income, according to the Glenview-based Giving USA Foundation, which tracks trends in philanthropy. Obama tax returns dating to 1997 show he fell well below that benchmark until 2005, the year he arrived in Washington.
Was it a sudden revelation that they really could have been more generous, or was it a political calculation that a past lack of generosity would be a future political liability? I don’t know, because I can’t read their minds, but I certainly have my suspicions.
It has been said that character is defined by doing the right thing when nobody is watching you. At least to judge from their charitable contributions, the Obamas are very good at doing the right thing . . . when people are watching. Heck, I’ll bet that, now that The Washington Times has publicized it, they’ll even find a few farthings to send to Nairobi.
Hat tip to Gretchen for the Washington Times article.
____________________________
¹ – There are some vastly different numbers floating around, some of which put Mr Biden’s net worth in the negative ranges (meaning: heavily in debt) and some have it up to $300,000. I picked The Washington Post’s numbers as coming from a reliable source, and pretty much in the middle of the published ranges.
² – For those who will be wondering, the Pico family’s charitable contributions for 2002 were greater than the Obamas, on an income that was less than half of that of the Obamas.
Among those not annoyed at Barack Obama for “neglecting” George Obama… George Obama.
Wow, that isn’t much of a tax deduction. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of charitable contributions don’t get deducted – I pretty much only deduct my temple dues (which, bizarrely, still makes my deduction more than the Obamas’). I make other contributions, but I rarely keep track of them enough to deduct them.
That having been said, Republicans often give more than Democrats. Why? It should be obvious – Democrats believe that the government ought to be helping the poor, and Republicans (here I’m generalizing grossly) don’t. So while Dems are more likely to try to help the poor via the political process, Repubs are more likely to help outside of it. (That, and churchgoers are more likely both to help out and to be Repubs.)
Partially off topic, how do you Christians deduct collection-plate donations – there isn’t someone going around giving out receipts with the collection plate, is there?
Democrats think it is the government’s job to take care of the poor. Republicans think it is every person’s responsibility to take care of the poor. Therein lies the difference.
But as a Christian, Obama should know about tithing (giving 10% of his income), as well as volunteering in the Trinity Church’s many well-publicized charities. Where were the Obamas?
My church runs a food pantry (one of the largest in the city), gives a variety of assistance to the poor, and works with a local interchurch agency to provide other needs. My minister has often said that people who can’t give money can donate their time. It’s interesting that the Obamas seemingly gave so little of either.
Most churches keep track of donations in their accounting systems. At the end of the year, each parishioner who donated to the church gets a statement of the amount given for that year. You can use that for tax purposes.
It’s pretty simple: I make my contributions to my church by check, so I have the records. The chuirch provides parishioner envelopes, so they can tell me what I contributed, even if it’s in cash, if I need to know. My wife’s United Way contributions come out of her check, so that information is accumulated on her pay stub.
A cash contribution here and there might get missed.
There has not been much media commentary regarding a lawsuit involving a son and brother of Senator Biden. A lot of money is being passed around and family members are getting a good portion of it.
Now we have a ticket with both members with lobbyists in the family.
This is change?
Your blatant bias is revealed in your first sentence: “in his opening appearance with Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL), tried to trash Senator John McCain (R-AZ).” Your effort to exploit Obama’s middle name is obvious when you neglect to include another Senator’s middle name directly afterward. Save yourself some credibility and either be consistent or drop the tactic of trying to play on the fears of xenophobes.
Why, David! Are you saying that there’s something wrong with Mr Obama’s middle name? Is he or should he be embarrassed with it?
The point is there is absolutely nothing wrong with his middle name. But there is, however, something wrong with tactic used by the conservative media of emphasizing a pointless detail for the effect of fear mongering and associating a politician with a former dictator.
There is no reason to be embarrassed by the name, and I doubt he is actually embarrassed by the name. Although, I am sure that he is very conscious of it and obvious political repercussions that using it heavily would incur. For instance, if my middle name was “Hitler” I would be reluctant to shout it from the roof tops if I were interested in holding any position of power.
It is interesting to know that the Obama’s haven’t been abundantly generous with their charitable contributions. But I do think your article would be more convincing it didn’t begin with a bias red flag like I mentioned.
2 points:
1. Why is Barack Obama expected to be responsible for a half-brother he has only met twice? This is clutching at straws to find something to criticize. How about Cindy McCain claiming she is an only child while having 2 half-sisters and reportedly ingnoring one of them at their father’s funeral.
2. Tax returns do not make a good indication of someone’s commitment to charity. Ronald Reagan claimed that he and Nancy believed in tithing. Yet, his tax return showed that he only gave about 1% to charity. Did he lie? Or, did he just not claim deductions? I personally do NOT claim any deduction for gifts to my church. I do not give money to God to get a benefit from the state. I also do not bother with trying to keep track of what I give to GoodWill or other such organizations when I give “things” that I no longer use. The only charity deductions I itemize are when my business gives money to schools, little league, etc.
Oh, Dana, please drop the “it’s totally innocent” posture. Virtually the only people who refer to Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” are conservatives who are attacking him in some way at the same time. Everyone else, including his friends, family, and himself, refers to him as “Barack Obama.” Since he’s being attacked as “not one of us,” (for example, the lies that he’s a Muslim) sharing a name of Muslim origin with a dictator is a liability. This wouldn’t matter at all if the voting public were completely rational, but as we all know, they are not.
Why are people being so small in their remarks and opinions? Don’t we all just want to move to a way that will make things work for all of the citizens (don’t even go there about who are citizens!) and have reasonable health care for all of us in addition to not having our tax dollars spent on roads, bridges, schools and hospitals here instead for big-time money spent for sending troops to “police” the Middle East where the people living there simply want us to GO HOME.
Why didn’t you print the whole article? Why didn’t you mention that George was actually proud of his half brother, and that he was doing well in his own life. Maybe George is not living up to your standards but he sounds happy to me. Why didn’t you also mentioned that he was angry at the magazines because they exaggerated everything. You are all fucked in the head for trying to involve yourselves in someones personal life. You make it sound as if you are all superior and above the fray. To bask in your charitable contributions in order to make a point shows incredible bad taste and to a large degree moral indecency . Those who give, give because they care. All you are trying to do is demonize and comment on an American’s personal relationship with HIS family. It doesn’t matter where they are from. I’m sure that if any of you assholes found out you had a distant relative overseas you wouldn’t even send a fruit cake during Christmas, or maybe you would, but that would be about the extent of that contact. NOT THAT IT’S ANYBODIES BUSINESS!
Hannity is taking up a collection for George. And didn’t BO in Berlin say he was a citizen of the world??? Say, isn’t George part of that world?
Mary B> You’re venturing too far into the territory of actual topics. The goal here is more snotty carping about “LIBRUL HIPPOCRISY!!”
This has got to be the dumbest attack I’ve seen so far and that is saying a lot. Congratulations Dana Pico
Actually, I think that what I’ve written makes a fairly significant point. As Senator Obama is saying that we have to do more to share the wealth, it seems that he isn’t sharing the wealth when it comes to his personal life — or at least he wasn’t when he was too small a fry for people to be checking. Once he had made that great speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and was touted as presidentibili, his charitable contributions increased. That’s the point: character is doing the right thing when nobody is watching.
Mr Blommie wrote:
While I’m certain that I have unknown relatives overseas, I don’t know any of them. As for whether or not I;d help out a complete stranger overseas, read this. And note that I have the CFCA logo, with an embedded hyperlink, in the sidebar, in case anyone else is looking for a good charity with low administrative overhead.
Then, of course, there’s the fact that conservatives seem to have greater charitable contributions than liberals in the first place. Our friends on the left are very good at telling us how we must be kind and generous, but somehow, when it comes to translating their words into deeds, the statistics tell us that they aren’t quite so good at it.
This doesn’t directly apply to the liberal-conservative spectrum on donating, but I think it’s worth noting since the extremely wealthy are more likely to be conservatives and vice versa:
“The 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey shows that households with incomes below $20,000 gave a higher percentage of their earnings to charity than did any other income group: 4.6 percent, on average. As income increased, the percentage given away declined: Households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 donated 2.5 percent or less. Only at high income levels did the percentage begin to rise again: For households with incomes over $100,000, the number was 3.1 percent.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/104475/The-Poor-Give-More;_ylt=AtCb1CddBvVJi5XA6SjXQ05O7sMF
In other words, it’s easy to give more when you have more to give. I don’t think we should be applauding some CEO that gives away 3 percent of his income after having spare cash for a new sports car and 3rd condo, while a less fortunate person is giving away 3 percent and trying to pay a mortgage and feed their family.
By the way, the statistics you site in your other article rely on statewide data, not terribly accurate given the political and economic diversity within any given state.
“…when it comes to translating their words into deeds, the statistics tell us that they aren’t quite so good at it.”
I don’t believe that is true at all. For one thing, “statistics” never tell the whole story… and are frequently used incorrectly by left and right.
I know many volunteers in my town… and most of the ones I know are what YOU would call liberal.
As for actual monetary contributions, I don’t know… and I doubt sincerely that you do! Tax records do not tell the whole story. And taking one well-known conservative and one well-known liberal and comparing their tax returns [as your cited articel does] doesn’t mean anything when it comes to “all” liberals or “all” conservatives. And the article didn’t specify anything about Pelosi’s husband or about their business interests, etc. Out of her income, she donated over 20% to charity… even if it wasn’t the charities you think she should have.
Fact is that Obama and his wife took lower paying jobs that put their greatest time and effort into their communities. Michelle left a very comfortable position with a high-powered, high-end law firm to take a job working first with the city and then with youth. How much does this loss of income count when it comes to a liberal’s commitment to translate her words into deeds… to walk the walk?
Why would you give your money to god? Does he really need it?
Yes. His work here on earth does take money, and time, and effort.
The statistics cited note that the second most charitable state, Mississippi, is also the poorest. Even the article David cited noted that the poor tend to be more generous than wealthier people, at least until you get above $100,000 of income.
Other statistics bear that out, as Massachusetts, third in the nation in Adjusted Gross Income, is 49th in the nation in charitable giving.
One of the factors here is the delusion of conventional wisdom; of course people with higher incomes ought to be able to donate more to charity, because they have more available funds. That the poorest people would be the most generous seems counterintuitive, but the fact is that they are. Maybe it stems from being the most in need, they have a greater appreciation for the needs of others.
This will seem almost made-up, because it’s a version of the “widow’s mite” story from Mark 12:41-44, but it really did happen to me. I was at Mass in St Joseph’s Church in Hampton, Virginia. St Joseph’s was a reasonably well-to-do parish. One day, as the collection basket was passed, I noticed that the woman next to me, dressed in decent enough clothing, put in a few coins. Naturally, I said nothing, but in my mind I thought that she was rather cheap. Then, when Mass ended and we were leaving, I noticed that she walked with a handicapped gait. I had harshly judged someone, who turned out to be handicapped in some fashion — the exact nature of which I do not know — and who was probably very poor. The error, and the sin, was mine.
Maybe it’s lost on you but when you contribute, whether it’s a dime or ten thousand dollars you are helping. Touting the amount you give is a form of aggrandizement. Be thankful you are in a position to help in a big way and don’t belittle the efforts of others. I thought the name of this website was common sense political thought? Why not focus on issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, Health care, education, crime, just to name a few. Maybe you ought to change the name of this site to Non Sense Political Thought.
This may be getting off topic, but here is a big question and a smaller one for you Dana, as I struggle to understand the conservative christian psyche:
1. As you are obviously a Christian, why don’t you believe in the sort of wealth distribution tax policies democrats like Obama put forth? Something from my decade of religion classes (during my youth) seems to make me think Jesus wanted the rich to share with the poor. Even if you think people should do this of their own accord, doesn’t a progressive tax policy, in sum, do Jesus’ work?
2. Why in your last post, after apparently making a preconception about the person next to you in church, do you leap to make another assumption that she is poor simply because she has a handicap? This seems a lot to derive from the way a person walks.
Mr Blommie: If you’ll check our categories list in the right hand sidebar, you’ll see that we do have sections on the war in Iraq, the economy, Health care, and crime. You might not appreciate everything therein, but we certainly address the subjects.
David asks:
Because I don’t believe that government-mandated, government directed wealth redistribution is either fair to people who work or effective in its purposes.
Charity is a gift of the heart, something that people do willingly. When the Democrats propose to take money from people who earn it to giove to those who do not, that isn’t charity, but forced confiscation. If the people who had the money wanted to give it away, they would have done so.
But more, it seems very ineffective to me. I realize that you haven’t been a visitor here long enough to know, but I grew up very poor, and got out of poverty not because of welfare, but because my mother was too proud to accept welfare, and simply worked hard to earn a living. These were values she passed on to her children, including me.
As well-intentioned as our welfare system might have been, at the bottom was a huge misconception: we thought that if people were just given a helping hand, they’d be motivated to go to work and finish the task of getting themselves out of poverty. It really never occurred to us that there would be literally millions of people who would actually accept the Faustian bargain, “If you’ll agree to live in poverty, we’ll give you enough money so that you don’t have to work.”
It was an supply and demand situation: our welfare system created a demand for poverty, and there were people willing to supply it!
The people who crafted our welfare programs were all educated, well-intentioned individuals. And they all worked hard at what they did. But they were never able to move outside of their own self-conceptualization, never able to grasp that there were people who would choose permanent poverty rather than to work. To the people who designed our welfare programs, such an idea would never even occur to them in their own lives, and they could never really understand that, to other people, it migt be an acceptable bargain.
David also asked:
It’s true enough that I was taking a judgement based on very incomplete information, but, coupled with the tiny amount of her contribution, it made sense.
Could I have been wrong? Certainly enough! But it seems to me that the lesson continues even if it’s possible that the judgement was in error.
New McCain Ad Wonders Why Obama’s Brother Lives on $1 a Month…
I think it’s a pretty fair question….
Obama and others are all about telling Americans that they need to “sacrifice” but they’re all about rhetoric rather than leading by example.
Sacrifice, and indeed most policies they seek to enact, are for “other people.”
If you don’t have much money, it’s easy for the amount you give to be a larger percentage of your income. If I only earn a dollar but give away a quarter, wow! I gave 25% of my income to charity.
In no way is this belittling the amounts the poor give. Indeed, I think poor people give more because money means less to them than the more well off. But if Bill Gates gives 1% of his income, I think that’s a good thing, as well.
Jesus taught that we should “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” meaning we should pay our taxes. But the Bible is filled with God directing people to give of their own accord without government demanding it. The fact is, we are commanded to take care of our brethren, not to expect the government to confiscate other people’s money to do it.
I doubt most of the people here really spend much time touting their giving. But periodically, charity becomes an issue in politics or other subjects between liberals and conservatives. But I’m still puzzled why Barack and Michelle Obama haven’t seemed to put in many free hours to this or that charity. We’ve all heard ad nauseam about Obama’s work as a “community organizer.” Surely, if he’d spent time at a soup kitchen or helping some other charity, we would have heard that, as well.
As for using Barack’s real name, he could have changed it had he thought it was a liability. But, in fact, he originally thought it made him look better to his constituents. Now that it’s a liability, it is, somehow, the fault of those who use it.
Dana: I respect your story and how your family worked hard enough to not need to rely on welfare. However, I think it is important to note that a progressive tax policy is not the same as welfare or a mere handout that can be as easily abused like we’ve seen in some welfare programs.
In the Obama plan it is a matter of raising taxes on people who’s income is over $250,000.00 a year, which is greater than the senator’s salary you attacked in your article. They would see their taxes go up to what it was during the Clinton years, around %45, so that everyone else, who are actually struggling to get by, like your family apparently was, have a little bit easier time. It’s not about giving it to people who didn’t earn it, it’s about making wages more balanced and narrowing the ever increasing divide between the wealthy and the poor. This isn’t “forced confiscation,” it’s redistributing money that the rich don’t need (and in many cases can’t even find ways to spend) to the people who actually are working hard but aren’t making it, or aren’t getting access to decent schools or health care or housing. This policy would have helped your family, without diminishing your pride.
I think relying on charity alone is a hopeless cause, sure there are a generous few, but this is not a reliable policy that can actually fix any sizable problems. Schools, infrastructure, health care plans, these things need a steady and constant income to keep going, relying on millionaires to feel generous is not sound policy. It may sound nice, but it’s not realistic.
Also, I think Richard makes a very good point, so what if a traditional measurement of charity from the Obama’s isn’t up to your standard, how do you measure entire lives dedicated to fixing these problems?
Sharon, on what basis can you make this claim about Obama’s middle name: “he originally thought it made him look better to his constituents.” To what constituent does the name of a dictator appeal to, exactly?
And, sure, if Bill Gates donates 1% of his income, which he has generously done and more, it amounts to a great deal more money than if someone on the poverty line donates 1%. But, Bill Gates will have literally no repercussions in his day to day life from this donation, while for the person on the poverty line it can be the difference between eating well, or not at all. Bill Gates still gets to sit in his 66,000 square foot house (literally). Who has made the greater sacrifice? Or honestly, any sacrifice at all? Which is not to say I don’t think Bill Gates or other millionaires don’t do great things or don’t deserve credit for them, but it is to say, proportionally, many of the exorbitantly wealthy could do more.
David,
You start with the fundamental premise that if someone doesn’t “need” all the money he earns, he should have to “give” it to the government so it can be given to someone else who “needs” it without having “earned” it. Conservatives reject the notion that it is the government’s duty to redistribute income in this manner. It is up to individuals to help the less fortunate and it is up to all people to use the freedom we have to make better lives for themselves and their families. Lots of people don’t have much, but most of those people will not be poor forever.
And as for “Obama will only tax those making $250,000,” that’s not true. He will let the Bush tax cuts expire, which affect all Americans, raising everyone’s taxes. And then he’ll raise taxes on “the rich” some more.
Sharon, I appreciate the fact that you feel the more fortunate have some kind of obligation to help out the less fortunate, many people don’t. However, I think one of the issues here is how we think one qualifies to “earn” the income they have.
To stick with the previous example, did Bill Gates “earn” his billions of dollars when he stole someone else’s program and published it at the right place and the right time? I think there is a gap in logic when we assume everyone legitimately has a right to all of the money they have. Lets compare Bill Gates to a fast food fry guy. Does Bill Gates have the skills and intelligence greater than the fry guy to equal a greater pay? Yes, I think he does. But, do Bill Gate’s skills and intelligence and ability to run a company equal nearly a million dollars per year difference in salary? No, I don’t think they do.
There are obvious desirable reasons for large pay scales, rewarding those who excel and accomplish things, however, I do think this scale is blown completely out of proportion. In my opinion, the Obama tax policy is a step forward in correcting a top heavy system, which benefits a lucky, yet talented few, at the expense of the many.
So much of our economy depends on where we start. If you are born in an impoverished family, statistically you are very unlikely to escape poverty within your lifetime. This is because when you are born into poverty, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain the cultural skills and values necessary to succeed in the mainstream economy. It is extremely difficult to absorb the values of education, or dedication to work, or language skills unless these are instilled during our youth. There are examples of people who succeed despite their rough starts, but statistics generally show us they are rare and exceptional. For some people, adversity simply makes them stronger, while for the majority they are unable to overcome.
So it seems to me that for many of us, our level of ultimate success in life is determined or capped from the very beginning of our lives, before we even have a chance to prove ourselves. If this is true, does an extreme pay scale based on achievements really make any sense at all in terms of fairness? Has Bill Gates truly “earned” billions of dollars while someone at the minimum wage, who may work the same number of hours, scrapes by with $20,000? This is, in short, why I believe it is the government’s duty to distribute wealth to some extent more than what Bush policy does, because in many cases what is supposedly earned, does not match effort or work.
Suggested reading:
On the Obama tax policy/ideology:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/24Obamanomics-t.html?ex=1377144000&en=75073c1ef78a238e&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook
On the working poor and chances of subsequent success:
Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
David: I promise you an answer, but I’m hugely busy at work; I won’t get to an elaborate reply until this evening.
Looking forward to it!
David wrote:
I’m not certain how “redistributing money that the rich don’t need” doesn’t constitute forced confiscation; if the government requires that you give part of your wealth to it, against your wishes, it is, by definition, forced confiscation.
What I see in your writing is a well-intended desire to see those at the bottom of the economic ladder have a bit more. Well, I want to see those who aren’t earning very much earn more, but there are two main differences between us: I want to see them earn more, rather than be given more, and I don’t see it as the proper function of the government to take money from those who earn it, on an unequal basis, to give to those who do not.
I have no problems with taxation for general community expenses: schools, fire, police, highways and defense. I may have quibbles concerning how we spend on such programs — and I see things we do very wastefully in some of those areas — but the idea of providing common services is fine with me. Absent such, anarchy results.
But I have a very large problem with tax money being spent in direct payments or subsidies to individuals. The notion of involuntary redistribution of wealth strikes me as nothing more than theft. It is certainly true that Bill Gates can afford to pay more in taxes, not only in a gross amount, but as a percentage of his income, but that someone has more does not make theft of more somehow either justifiable or right.
And there is more involved than simply my concepts of legalized thievery here. The idea that the rich should somehow pay more and owe more, in percentage as well as in gross terms, is a notion that relies on the concept that they somehow didn’t really earn their wealth, that they somehow don’t really deserve to have what they have. That, to me, fosters class envy and class hatred.
A couple of points about the Obama tax plan. First of all, I just flat don’t believe him! He talks about tax relief for the middle class, but when he had the opportunity to actually vote on it, in the Senate, he voted for a plan to increase the 25,28 and 33% brackets by three percentage points apiece. I have some problem believing politicians who say one thing and do something else.
Second, as I noted here, we are definitely working class: my wife and I work for a living! My wife is a registered nurse, working on a pediatric wing in a hospital, and I’m a concrete plant manager. I use a shovel and I run a front-end loader and a forklift, I grease the machinery, I get my hands dirty, I pump cement trailers and sometimes repair a mixer trucks; a thoroughly blue-collar job. We’re not “the wealthy” that the Democrats claim are the beneficiaries of the “Bush tax cuts for the rich,” but ordinary people who work for a living.
Well, I have an old year 2000 Form 1040 I keep around, and I ran our 2006 and 2007 income through that 2000 1040. Thanks to the Bush tax cuts, we saved $5,703 in taxes in 2006 and $7,202 in 2007. That’s real money, $12,905 over two years.
Put another way, that’s a bit more than $500 a month. For us, $500 a month is over half of our mortgage payment, or it’s more than my heating oil bill, or it’s more than all of my other utilities put together, it’s even more than my Mountain Dew consumption! If we revert back to the Clinton-era tax rates — the most probable outcome if Mr Obama is elected — then I have to either make $500 more a month, or the government will take $500 a month of real money from my family.
Now, we sacrifice, in that we give to charity: my wife makes a United Way contribution out of her check every two weeks, and we give a fairly significant amount to the church. Those are voluntary efforts, and, quite frankly, we do our share, and more.
But if I must give up that $500 every month, it has to be asked: what real things will we give up? Will we have to eat less expensively? Will we have to make our clothing last a bit longer? Will our daughters have to miss out on different things? Will we have to reduce our 401(k) contributions, leaving us poorer when we retire?
These are all real things. Sometimes, when people talk about taxes and how some people can somehow “afford more” in taxes, they always talk about numbers, always speak in the abstract. But money is simply a medium of exchange, a mechanism by which our labor is converted into something transferable, to exchange for the things we need. When we talk about what tax increases can be afforded, we need to talk about real things that people have to give up to pay for those increased taxes.
David,
Maybe we live in different countries. One of the wonderful things about the country I live in is that a person can start out in the very, very poor and still become quite wealthy through good choices and hard work.
I know this not merely because of my own parents–my father was a West Virginia hillbilly who didn’t graduate from high school but managed to see two of his three children graduate from college.
And my father’s story isn’t unusual. My husband doesn’t have a college degree yet he makes a good salary because he is smart and works hard. He watches trends in his industry and educates himself so that he stays up with them. Yet, when he was a child, they had to use a soup kitchen to feed the family.
These stories aren’t isolated incidents. Millions of people start out poor and manage to become weathy (by Barack Obama standards) because they have the drive to get out of the place they started. Frankly, I get angry when I hear about the “luck” involved with being rich. Except in very rare instances, luck has nothing to do with it. Working your butt off does.
Perhaps in the country you live in, your “level of ultimate success in life is determined or capped from the very beginning of our lives, before we even have a chance to prove (y)ourselves.” But that’s not the country I live in.
I’ll attempt to defend this tag-team assault one at a time, paragraph by paragraph, maybe we can learn something from each other here and whether our differences of opinion are legitimate, logical, or frivolous.
Dana:
1. “Redistributing money that the rich don’t need” doesn’t constitute forced confiscation” – we can semantically change the connotation of this concept all we want to meet our own views, but it probably won’t change anything. We simply disagree on the fairness of this type of taxation.
2. “I want to see them earn more, rather than be given more.” I think this is a tricky difference here. I simply want the working poor to earn more for the work that they already do, which is to say that they aren’t being “given more” than what they already deserve. There are many cases of people who work their 40 plus hours per week, and still don’t make a living wage. I’m not exactly sure what more you want people do to earn a buck here. If you expect people in this situation to work 60, 80 hours to get by, they miss out on the opportunity to raise their children correctly, and poverty sustains itself to another generation. I believe anyone who actually works their 40 hours deserves a minimum standard of living that should be assured by the government, whether that be through a social program or otherwise.
3. I think we generally agree that taxation is necessary to provide things like you mentioned, and I think most people can agree wasteful spending is generally included in this category, and undesirable. I think that’s true of most large bureaucracies (not all), and in a representative democracy it’s difficult to avoid.
4. “The idea that the rich should somehow pay more and owe more, in percentage as well as in gross terms, is a notion that relies on the concept that they somehow didn’t really earn their wealth, that they somehow don’t really deserve to have what they have. That, to me, fosters class envy and class hatred.” I think I will generally argue that no one can legitimately earn or deserve the type of money CEO’s have when there are existing people below the poverty line. I do not envy or have hatred for the very successful, I simply think its obscene in a country as rich as ours that there is a disparity of income so great, while the bottom line does not have health care or access to education.
5. Obama tax plan. The issue here is that tax policy is complicated. I’m not a tax policy expert, I doubt you are, neither of our presidential candidates are. And ultimately, the president doesn’t get to decide tax policy, it becomes a confusing and mixed up compromise when congress gets their hands on a bill.
As to the vote you’re talking about by Obama, I believe you are speaking about the non-binding resolution vote he cast, which simply does not matter. Why he cast a vote in support of that, and now supports a different plan, I don’t know, maybe it was a bartering chip, congress is a complicated and deceptive place.
As to your claimed savings under the Bush administration, I simply don’t have enough information to analyze it. I would have to know your salaries, deductions, and frankly be smarter to figure that out, and personally I really don’t want to try. This is a topic that gets very washed out with rhetoric because it is very complicated. However, from what I’ve read about the Obama policy and the rhetoric I’ve heard, it is not apparent that lower and middle income brackets will see an increase. In his speech last night, Obama claimed that he would only raise taxes on the richest 5%, which you are philosophically opposed to, yet shouldn’t effect you personally. Although, where I live, RNs make good money, and while being a plant manager may by some be labeled a “blue collar” job, I imagine your income to be substantially greater than your average retail worker or restaurant waitress. By the way, as a fellow Dew addict, I sympathize with your fear of missing out on that extra case.
Since I feel it’s appropriate to divulge some background facts of my perspective, as you both have done, which may weaken my positions to you, I was raised in a middle class family, my dad graduated from college, my mom did not. I was fortunate to have help going to college and graduated in 2007. I have a middle class level job and am looking at continuing my education in the fall 09. Since a generation divide seems to be apparent as well, I will divulge that I am in my early/mid-20′s, although I can assure you I’m not a “viper.”
I hope to try and convince you, Sharon, that we do in fact live in the same, diverse country, but, now I am very behind in my work. I reiterate my suggestion of reading Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich.
I’ll attempt to defend this tag-team assault one at a time, paragraph by paragraph, maybe we can learn something from each other here and whether our differences of opinion are legitimate, logical, or frivolous.
Dana:
1. “Redistributing money that the rich don’t need” doesn’t constitute forced confiscation” – we can semantically change the connotation of this concept all we want to meet our own views, but it probably won’t change anything. We simply disagree on the fairness of this type of taxation.
2. “I want to see them earn more, rather than be given more.” I think this is a tricky difference here. I simply want the working poor to earn more for the work that they already do, which is to say that they aren’t being “given more” than what they already deserve. There are many cases of people who work their 40 plus hours per week, and still don’t make a living wage. I’m not exactly sure what more you want people do to earn a buck here. If you expect people in this situation to work 60, 80 hours to get by, they miss out on the opportunity to raise their children correctly, and poverty sustains itself to another generation. I believe anyone who actually works their 40 hours deserves a minimum standard of living that should be assured by the government, whether that be through a social program or otherwise.
3. I think we generally agree that taxation is necessary to provide things like you mentioned, and I think most people can agree wasteful spending is generally included in this category, and undesirable. I think that’s true of most large bureaucracies (not all), and in a representative democracy it’s difficult to avoid.
4. “The idea that the rich should somehow pay more and owe more, in percentage as well as in gross terms, is a notion that relies on the concept that they somehow didn’t really earn their wealth, that they somehow don’t really deserve to have what they have. That, to me, fosters class envy and class hatred.” I think I will generally argue that no one can legitimately earn or deserve the type of money CEO’s have when there are existing people below the poverty line. I do not envy or have hatred for the very successful, I simply think its obscene in a country as rich as ours that there is a disparity of income so great, while the bottom line does not have health care or access to education.
5. Obama tax plan. The issue here is that tax policy is complicated. I’m not a tax policy expert, I doubt you are, neither of our presidential candidates are. And ultimately, the president doesn’t get to decide tax policy, it becomes a confusing and mixed up compromise when congress gets their hands on a bill.
As to the vote you’re talking about by Obama, I believe you are speaking about the non-binding resolution vote he cast, which simply does not matter. Why he cast a vote in support of that, and now supports a different plan, I don’t know, maybe it was a bartering chip, congress is a complicated and deceptive place.
As to your claimed savings under the Bush administration, I simply don’t have enough information to analyze it. I would have to know your salaries, deductions, and frankly be smarter to figure that out, and personally I really don’t want to try. This is a topic that gets very washed out with rhetoric because it is very complicated. However, from what I’ve read about the Obama policy and the rhetoric I’ve heard, it is not apparent that lower and middle income brackets will see an increase. In his speech last night, Obama claimed that he would only raise taxes on the richest 5%, which you are philosophically opposed to, yet shouldn’t effect you personally. Although, where I live, RNs make good money, and while being a plant manager may by some be labeled a “blue collar” job, I imagine your income to be substantially greater than your average retail worker or restaurant waitress. By the way, as a fellow Dew addict, I sympathize with your fear of missing out on that extra case.
Since I feel it’s appropriate to divulge some background facts of my perspective, which may weaken my positions to you, I was raised in a middle class family, my dad graduated from college, my mom did not. I was fortunate to have help going to college and graduated in 2007. I have a middle class level job and am looking at continuing my education in the fall 09. Since a generation divide seems to be apparent as well, I will divulge that I am in my early/mid-20′s, although I can assure you I’m not a “viper.”
I would like to try and convince you, Sharon, that we do in fact live in the same country, but, now I am very behind in my work. I reiterate my suggestion of reading Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Sharon, like many conservatives I’ve spoken with you seem insistent on the fact that if you, personally can do something, everyone should be able to and can. I disagree with this perspective: not everyone is smart, not everyone is talented, not everyone has someone in their lives to push them in the right direction, nonetheless towards college or beyond. Many people grow up with parents who are in gangs, or use drugs, or are abusive. Yet you seem to believe that these people need to work things out for themselves instead of getting a helping hand. What kind of value is that? Not everyone can make it through college or gain an advanced degree, just like not everyone can run a marathon, I sure can’t. We can all try our hardest to get by, but there is a good reason for government run safety nets.
I think the “American Dream” as you so fully seem to subscribe to, and as the Democrats have even been talking about lately, is a false assumption. To be clear, I am not arguing that hard work never pays off, or everyone who makes it got lucky. I think this ideology requires a ladder for you to climb, and while that ladder may exist, there are prerequisites to getting to it which many people don’t have access to.
“Except in very rare instances, luck has nothing to do with it.” Please ask any entrepreneur if they think luck has nothing to do with their success or lack of success. I do think there is a very real and undeniable element of luck in our economy. Buying a stock at the right time, applying for a job at the right time, meeting the right person, having the right connection. Only half of the jobs in this country are even posted on some type of public forum. This is a system that benefits the people who are already “in” and works against the lower classes. Getting ahead in many cases involves taking big risks. Where there is risk, there is luck. This is a simple sufficient and necessary clause, hard work is necessary part of success, but it is not the only factor for success. Many hard workers are not successful.
Here are some statistics on upward mobility of individuals from families of poverty I found, which are actually much more optimistic than others that I’ve heard…enjoy:
The vast majority of individuals, 71 percent, whose parents were in the bottom half of the income distribution actually improved their rankings relative to their parents. However, the amount of their movement was not large.
• Only about 45 percent of those who started in the bottom half moved up the income distribution by more than 20 percentiles relative to their parents’ ranking.
• Many of those who did manage to exceed their parents’ income started near the very bottom, where exceeding one’s parents is not a very steep hurdle.
As a result, only 38 percent of individuals who started in the bottom half of the income distribution moved to the top half of the distribution as adults.
Men experience sharply higher rates of upward economic mobility than women.
• While 41 percent of women who start in the bottom income quintile remain there, just 27 percent of men do.
• Only 38 percent of women who start in the bottom half of the income distribution surpass their parents by at least 20 percentiles, compared
to 51 percent of men.
• Further, women born to parents in all 5 quintiles are significantly more likely to fall down to the bottom quintile than men. For example, women born to parents in the fourth and top quintiles are more than twice as likely as men to fall to the bottom quintile.
Blacks experience dramatically less upward economic mobility than whites.
• Forty-four percent of blacks will remain in the bottom income quintile in adulthood compared with just 25 percent of whites.
• Although the vast majority of blacks in the bottom half of the income distribution will exceed their parents’ place in the distribution, the extent of their movement is markedly lower than that of whites.
– Only about 35 percent of blacks who start in the bottom half of the income distribution will increase their relative position by 20 percentiles compared to nearly 50 percent of whites.
http://economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_Upward_Mobility_ES.pdf
So, as you can see, while some people are able to make it out of poverty over the course of a full generation, outlooks are bleak, especially for already disadvantaged groups.
Since we are running a large deficit, taxes we don’t pay now will be paid by our children. You say you can’t afford $500 more per month—so how are our children going to afford much MORE than that per month when the debt gets completely out of control? When I retire in 2040 at age 70 (IF I even have any hope of retiring at all) I’ll probably be paying outrageous taxes, not to mention a perpetual rent payment since I have no way of affording a house. All thanks to “tax cuts” and deficit spending.
People who are successful always like to claim “luck” had nothing to do with it, probably because it assuages their guilt that their fortunes were better than others’. People who spout the nonsense in the book “The Secret” are the worst of all.
David wrote:
But that’s just it, David: you don’t have to go to college to be successful, you don’t have to even finish high school. In my field, I’ve met plenty of people who never even finished high school, but simply by having the willingness to work they made successed of themselves.
Now, they may not be wealthy, but they can support themselves, by driving trucks or pouring concrete or carpentry, any of dozens of building trades.
I look at the illegal immigrant crews who work construction on the East Coast, and I see men who were poorly educated, speak poor — if any — English and have to try to remain inconspicuous. Yet they work hard, do good work, and make a living doing it. If they can do it, after all of the hardships they have borne, then there is absolutely no excuse for an American citizen, if he isn’t physically or mentally disabled, not to be able to do the same thing.
You are touching upon the crux of the problem for so many people who live in the inner cities, primarily the black inner cities. But they all have an opportunity to try to get ahead, if they’ll just try. The problem is that so many of them don’t try.
Now, I’ll agree that luck does play a part, but I’ve found that, in many cases, luck follows effort. The harder I’ve worked, the luckier I have gotten. Of course, prayer helps, too!
You mentioned all of the statistics about women and blacks in America not getting ahead, and said that was one reason we need a social safety net. Yet we have had that welfare system for two generations now, and still the statistics you mentioned exist; by the proof of time, the welfare system has been proven unable to lift people out of poverty.
You see, every argument I have against the welfare system would be trashed, if our welfare system actually worked to lift people out of poverty. But it doesn’t, by the statistics you gave yourself. After two generations of trying, after two generations of being very nobly-intended and kind-hearted in our motivations, all we have created is a system to keep people in poverty!
Sometimes people not only don’t need sympathy and kind-heartedness; sometimes that simply enables them to continue in poverty. Sometimes what people need is a swift kick in the ass, the real threat that if they don’t work, they won’t eat. The immigrants, legal and illegal, who come here had that swift kick in their home countries, and came here looking for nothing more than the opportunity to work. Quite frankly, they got the opportunity to work because too many of our own citizens wouldn’t work.
Mike wrote:
Yup, that’s exactly right, which is why we need to lower taxes and cut spending, cut spending dramatically.
Well, Mike, I’ve found that the harder I work, the luckier I get. Somehow, some way, doing the right thing just seems to produce the right results.
You know, the most important thing that I do that leads to good luck is to simply get out of bed every morning and go to work. I don’t take “mental health” days, and I haven’t missed a day this century when I wasn’t actually in the hospital.
David wrote:
Well, it’s good to know that you’re a Dew addict; you just went up 4¾ points in my book!
Thing is, David, I look at what Barack Obama has said he’d do, and what votes he has actually cast as a senator, and I simply have a difficult time believing that what he would do as president will come close to matching what he has said he would do. The man has amassed the most liberal record in the Senate in 2007 — and his running mate comes in at number three — and it’s difficult for me to see these fine gentlemen reducing spending in the least. Even when it comes to the war in Iraq, Mr Obama has promised no precipitous withdrawal, so he won’t even save money there. His campaign promises amount to roughly an additional $200 billion each year for his first four years; he simply can’t keep all of his promises and not raise taxes on far more than the top 5%.
Right now, the top 5% of earners already pay 60.14% of all federal individual income taxes. The top 10% (and I just barely make it into that category) pay 70.79%. (There’s a transposition typo in the chart, but you’ll be able to figure it out.) Just how much more should they pay? In the meantime, the bottom half of taxpayers pay a whopping 2.99%.
The top one percent, of course, have different means than we do. Like progressive icon John Edwards, they can restructure their income and wealth to avoid taxes. The top 2-5% are somewhat more limited, in that more of them have a larger part of their income in salary, but they still have greater income rearrangement abilities than the rest of us.
At the risk of sounding old, I will tell you, David, that when I was in my 20s, I, too, thought most people didn’t get to live the American Dream. I thought that dream was just out of reach for my generation.
Oddly, though, as I got older, I found ways to do the things that the American Dream entails: I got married, I had a child. But then I slipped. I got divorced and became one of those statistics you like to quote about women: I was a single mother.
The funny thing was, David, I made more money and got more money back in taxes the year I was a single mom that at any other point in my life. I felt guilty because the government thought I was poor. Yet we were not poor; we had a house, a car, food, etc. But the government decided that you just can’t be comfortable the way I was.
I remarried, went to school again, had more children and we have a very comfortable life. See, David, I can say that the American Dream is possible for everyone because all you have to do is decide that’s what you want to do. You make choices designed to bring about the results you want and you will get what you set out for.
I bristle at the “luck” line because I have gotten to observe up close what “luck” looks like. It looks suspiciously like really hard work.
Well, Dana, it’s been fun, but I think we’re at a point here where moving forward would require some serious number crunching and fact sorting, the likes of which I can’t do in my spare time. Thank you for your thorough responses, it’s nice to get some conservative feedback more than one-liners like “liberals are weenies.”
Sharon, everyone has been telling me since i started college and started paying attention to politics “once you get a real job and start paying taxes you won’t be a liberal anymore.” I’ve been forking over a hefty portion of my salary over the last year and some months, and I sure would rather have that money to pay off school or put it towards my law school fund, but all in all, I don’t mind. I would pay more if it meant improving my city. I am more moderate than I was 5 years ago (I was a certified raging liberal back then, which is why I think extreme positions come from a lack of education, on both sides), but I don’t think that if I’m successful or if I continue to see my friends become successful it’s going to change my viewpoint. I know that whatever success I have is on the shoulders of my privileged upbringing, I’m white, male, middle class and my parents were educated. I’ve often thought of it as, if I wasn’t able to achieve anything it would be a little pathetic since I’ve been given all of these head starts. It’d be a little bit like taking the country’s largest economic expansion in history and a budget surplus and turning it into record deficits and a financial crisis……
Anyway, you both talk about good jobs you can get without a college education. A few of my good friends didn’t finish college and it doesn’t look like they’re going to anytime soon. They’re smart, hardworking, but are just getting by, without any savings. The high paying blue collar jobs are all being shipped overseas. Maybe you both witnessed an era where it was possible to become successful without education, but what I’ve witnessed so far has not been the case. Maybe I will eat my words in a few years when the economy turns around, maybe not.
The wonderful thing about our ever-changing economy is that there are always industries to succeed in. My husband is a computer programmer. He went to college for a couple of years, but it wasn’t for him. He got in on the ground floor of a very small company, where he was allowed to do some fantastic things, which prepared him for bigger and better things.
This was during the 1980s, when a computer science degree meant learning things like COBOL and FORTRAN. But there was plenty of works for young guys who knew how to program but didn’t have the paperwork. Now, there are entirely new degrees created to address very specific areas of programming. But my husband’s 15 years of experience, coupled with his desire to keep learning and exploring, help him to stay on top of the heap.
There will be something else in this generation, I’m sure.
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