One Of My Favorite Penzance Quotes

[filkertom]

"I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest":

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) appeared on MSNBC with Chris Jansing this morning to attack President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, which includes some tax increases on the wealthy. Taking up the typical GOP talking point, Fleming said raising taxes on wealthy “job creators” is a terrible idea that kills jobs because many of these people are small business owners who pay taxes through personal income rates.

Fleming is himself a business owner, so Jansing asked, “If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?” Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

On top of his congressional salary? Dunno. Even so, one tenth of that -- $40,000 a year -- would be more than I ever made, and enough for me, at least, to live really comfortably. I presume it would do well for a lot of you, too. With $400,000, I could get a regular house instead of a manufactured home, get platinum-standard health care, help my family, help my friends, go to every con I want to, and still save up for my dotage.

What it comes down to: They really don't get it. They simply don't understand what it's like to not be well-off. And I'm really trying to figure out how it can be a hardship to raise a family in Louisiana on $400,000 a year.

Comments

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

It doesn't matter whether it is a hardship. What matters is that they think it is a hardship, and will cut jobs accordingly.

Which in my mind means we should take back the money from the rich people, and return it to people who actually understand how to spend it responsibly. No matter how much you cook the books, you cannot run 80% of the economy on 20% of the wealth. Until that's fixed, nothing else is going to help.

[wednes]

Dude, if I made 40,000 a year, it would change my whole life.

[filkertom]

Same here, ace.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Honestly I really don't know what to think anymore. I really don't want to keep hammering the republicans but then one of them goes and bemoans that they only make $400,000 a year on top of their congressional salary, or they go on to propose a so called "fair tax" that would hit the poor harder than anyone.

Maybe it's that they don't get it, maybe it's that many of them simplly don't care about the little people. At this point I really don't know and my capacity to even care what's being said is being sorely tested. I don't know what the right answer is and I haven't heard anything that I agree with totally yet.

There is this though. Everyone should pay their fair share in taxes. Maybe that means the wealthy pay more than the poor. Maybe it means we need to reform the tax code to reflect a flat tax or finally close the multiple tax loop holes that allow corporations to get away without paying their share of the tax burden.

Whatever the solution is it needs to come soon because an awful lot of people are getting tired of hearing the same old song and dance and when the people get fed up congress critters tend to lose their jobs.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Just as a rhetorical note: I hate the term "tax burden." Taxes aren't a burden, they're something you should be glad to pay, assuming you like living in a civilisation and all that.

I like schools, roads, sewerage, municipal water, garbage collecion, hospitals and healthcare (thank you OHIP!), public housing (because I'd rather have poor people have their own places than breeding TB in shelters or trying to rip off my stuff), and all that good stuff. I like public gardens and public transit and public libraries, parks and sidewalks and street festivals.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Maybe that means the wealthy pay more than the poor.

Paying at all would be a nice enough leap for some of them.

[underpope.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to the back-pedaling.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

He won't backpedal. He'll double-down on it and accuse people of "class warfare" who call him on it.

And then nobody will vote for him. right? RIGHT? Because when you have such open contempt for (in rural Louisiana) probably ALL of your constituents, they don't continue to let you represent them.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Well, the first hardship is that you're, y'know, in Louisiana.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

...so this person is suggesting that poor people eat cake when they run out of bread?

*sigh*

I'm distressed by this amount of disconnection from the "not-pretty" parts of reality.

And I can't say more without going into a rant, which has the potential to be a bit hypocritical, so I will stop there.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

This is Louisiana. He's saying, let them eat Beignets.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Yep. Their disconnect from the reality most of us live in is appalling. They preach better budgeting, austerity, and "tighten your belts" for US but never for THEMSELVES.

I hearken back to when these idiots took office last year & we almost saw a shutdown & some of the Dems proposed that no members of Congress be paid while the gov was shut down. A bunch of the freshmen Tea Partiers who were howling about how we needed to tighten belts & budget better SCREAMED that they couldn't afford that. One of them, I forget which, said he was the sole income for his family & if his check was delayed they'd "starve." So I looked it up & did the math & what he'd made monthly since taking office was more than the average YEARLY salary in his district.

In other words in 4 or 5 months he'd made more than most of his constituents, people who he said needed to tighten up & budget more, but his family couldn't live on it... but he'd been OVERWHELMINGLY voted in to office on the promise he can fix the problems in a NATIONAL budget.

Sorry, no, you fail.

But that's the reality of what they see for themselves vs what they see for us. It's class warfare, all right... and they want to be sure they win.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

If you employ 5 people, you're a small business. If you employ 500... not so much.

The amount of redefining that goes on in Republican talking points is just sickening. But then, what else is new?

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

In this class warfare thing they've been getting it all their own way for the last forty years, with particularly disastrous grabs for $$ in the last Bush years--and IMHO that's why the economy has been spiralling into the dumpster. No middle class spending money, no Halloween gewgaws bought from Wallie's World. The fancy engines of capitalism aren't geared for running on hot air--strike that, for austerity.

[jenk]

Where he tripped up was in giving actual numbers.

If he'd said that after expenses and taxes he made less than his friends, I doubt it would've made the news.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

I seem to be reading this differently than the rest of you. The stuff that the rest of us consider "living expenses" seems to be taken out *before* the $400k ("feeding my family".) Assuming that that is the case, the $400k is not just "income", it's all that he has left to reinvest in his business. Only $400k would be available for him to innovate, become more competitive, and perhaps, down the line, hire new people.

From knowing businessmen of this size, I'd estimate that, depending on whether or not he had kids in college, whether or not his wife worked, and whether or not he gave some of his money to church or charity, "feeding his family" would amount to somewhere between $40k and $120k depending on how young his business is. In the case of start-ups, "feeding one's family" often eats up all the profits in a single-person owned business.

Tom Trumpinski

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

FWIW, down among the comments on that article are some remarks that he's not doing his own taxes or he'd use different terminology.
There's also more info (unconformed) on the congresscritter's other businesses in a comment from Bob, to wit:

...One of Fleming's many outside business interests (how does he have time to do his day job as legislator?) is owner of 33 Subway Franchises.

According to Franchise Times 2010 Top 200, Subway restaurants grossed about $8,200 per location. This would peg Dr. Fleming's (yes, he's an MD too) operations at over $14 million. This is more than double the figure he quoted and does not include his other business interests which include development companies. At a reasonable 20% margin, that's almost $3,000,000 per year -far more than the $400k referenced...

[patoadam]

I suspect that increasing taxes on the wealthy would stimulate the economy by putting into circulation money that the wealthy are hoarding, money that they neither spend nor invest. How do I know that the wealthy are hoarding money in this way? Well, if money were not being hoarded, the economy would be operating at full capacity. And the poor aren't the ones hoarding money because they don't have any.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Say that in Republican circles, and you'll get a patronizing lecture about how that's not true at all, the banks use that money to make loans and it goes back into the economy that way.

Only that's not happening, and it hasn't been for at least the last couple of decades. Since the 1980s, America has been the control subject in a gigantic economics experiment encompassing all the first-world nations. And by any reasonable standard of comparison, the results are clear; but a lot of people have a vested interest in not seeing them.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

So.. we shouldn't increase taxes on the 'job creators.'

Okay. So by that logic, we should have... unemployment in the sub-5% range. Since , you know, the job creators already have record low tax rates.

Yeah, I'm not buying it either.

I'm glad he gave numbers, though. Maybe people will listen to that $400K figure, think for a moment, look at the scraps in what remains of their wallets, and have a moment of Fridge Logic and say, "Hey, hold on a moment...."

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Conservative Principle #1: If you're poor, DIE.

Conservative Principle #2: ONLY the little people pay taxes.

Conservative Principle #3: If you're not rich, you're irresponsible.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

If you didn't know, Louisiana- even New Orleans- is REALLY cheap to live in. Almost as cheap as Texas.

And anyway, $400K is already more than 99% of Americans make.

His response when told that $40K making people (which is America's MEDIAN income level, meaning half of America makes LESS than that):

Jansing pointed out that to a person making $40,000 or $50,000 per year, making $400,000 annually is "not exactly a sympathetic position," but Fleming responded by calling his success a "virtue" and noting that “class warfare has never created a job."

"This is all about creating jobs," Fleming said. "This is not about attacking people who make certain incomes."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/john-fleming-obama-millionaires-tax-buffett-rule_n_970084.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

In other words: fuck you, but give ME more money.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

You don't become successful today by working hard. You become successful by getting OTHER people to work hard then taking the credit.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Let's look at it another way....

Because this man exists, 500 other people are buying food for their *own* tables--without the millions of dollars that he pays them having to go through the hands of a half-dozen bureaucratic agencies.

Do you really think that the government could take care of 500 people--get them food and shelter--for a half-million dollars?

Hell, if someone *gave* that many people that much money, they'd pin a medal on him. The only difference is that he expects them to exchange work for it.

And, no, 500 employees is not huge for a business owner. I worked for a family business back in the early 70s that had 200 employees. Information tech has allowed expansion of such business to what they are today.

I, for one, would much rather have a job that pays a living wage than a museum in Chicago.

Tom Trumpinski

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Your argument is, bluntly, bullshit.

You're saying: (a) that nobody would employ people if taxes for the rich are raised to at least equal the rates paid by the poor; or (b) that the only way people get employment is if the rich provide jobs for them.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that the vast majority of this clueless asshole's employees are making minimum wage and only working for him part time- which means no benefits, no vacation time or sick days, and fire-at-will. Which means in turn, to be blunt, most of them are NOT getting food and shelter paid for on what he pays them.

But if he doesn't want to run a business because he doesn't want to pay taxes? Fine. Someone else will. Someone else will say, "So, after taxes, I'll only clear $200K instead of $400K? I can live with that. I can live very well with that." So let this greedy, clueless, self-centered bastard sell off his business and just live off his Congressional salary plus what his conservative friends feed him. He won't starve- and there will still be a demand for sandwiches for someone else to fill, and make profit from.

None of which makes a good goddamn to the basic point: he is clearing, pure profit for personal living, ten times the national median income- even WITHOUT his Congressional pay (which is, last I heard, over $200K and massive benefits). And yet he, who makes more than 99% of all other Americans, he thinks he is poor and needs a tax cut.

The poor are doing without healthcare, medicine, insurance of all sorts, and taking minimum-wage part-time work and considering themselves lucky if they can find that... and this man wants a tax cut.

And he's in a position to GIVE himself a tax cut.

When taxes on he and his kind have not been lower since Herbert Hoover was President.

[jovan-scorn.livejournal.com]

In some ways you can't blame a person for having a totally messed up worldview like that. If you're wealthy you hang out with wealthy people, you compare yourself with them and it totally skews your perception. I think this is the same reason CEOs and other highly placed individuals make obscene salaries. The people who determine their pay make slightly less obscene amounts and "know" that the person who is above them should make more.

But everyone's pay was determined like this at that executive level. Placed higher, make more. It produces this weird feedback loop where the incomes increase higher than the required competency of the job. Honestly I don't know of many people who would qualify for a 2-3 mil salary based on what good they brought to the world. And some of that pay would be determined by what he would do with the pay to further bring good into the world whether that good be technology, literature, music, organization or leadership.

As for the whole job creators thing, the whole problem with that is there is no compulsion. It's like a room full of children "promising" to do try to do their homework if they can go home early or not clean up after themselves. Sure, some kids will honor their promises but most won't, they don't have a reason to.

Job creators don't put the public good ahead of their own gains. That's just the way it works. Don't worry, I'm leading into something here.

Example: A few days ago we had a company meeting where our HR manager was in and giving us a pep talk. . .I don't really know how to describe aside from it being long and annoying. One of his proud talking points was our company was sponsoring a local Hispanic cultural event, the undertones were mostly for recruiting purposes to have Spanish speaking labor as opposed to paying out for classes for those us perfectly willing to learn. But the icing was that the company paid for the rights to block out their major competitor from sponsoring the event too.

They paid to have their competition removed from a charitable event. And they were proud of it. Huh. People.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

My opinion, as I may have stated before, is that people like this are useless surplus. Their property, businesses and income should be taxed at 200% with no deductions allowed, and when they can't pay the other 100% they don't have, they should be given one option: involuntary organ donation.

Also, in order to serve in congress, it should be required that those elected spend 30 days living as homeless people in a strange city without any friends, money, phones, credit cards or ID prior to inauguration.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

A little too harsh. However, I'd require that they take one year living on the average income, with one note: They can quit at any time, if they're willing to give up politics forever. They can run their businesses, but the budget is...what, $42,000 per year? (I have no idea - that's roughly what I made before taxes last year.) They can't touch the rest of their money unless they use the escape clause.

Actually, I can almost imagine this as a reality show.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Nonono Tom. I watched this. He makes 600 k a year net. The 400k a year was After feeding his family. Now, knowing that there is no way a reasonable family spends 200 THOUSAND dollers on food, I am going to go out on a limb and say that is probably his overall household expenses... He said that was "all" he had left to reinvest etc.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

So the question is, what is he doing with that money? 400k a year should be enough to start another Subway sandwich shop or two. Is he creating jobs?

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Here's an article on how much taxes people *really* pay, rather than what it would be comfortable to our pre-conceived notions that they pay.....

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-rich-taxed-less-secretaries-070642868.html

I'll leave it without a further comment.

Tom Trumpinski

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Tom, I love you, brother, but I am amazed at how quickly you, the libertarian, are willing to defend the scouring of our national and individual coffers by our corporate owners. Because those bloody tax cuts for the wealthy are where a lot of that money is going.

I don't cotton to the arguments that say, well, such-and-such pays more taxes by percentage, therefore this poor little rich guy is getting screwed. Someone -- I think it might've been Warren Buffett -- came up with what I think is a pretty compelling argument a few years ago.

Let's imagine two people, both of whom pay total taxes of about 40%. One makes $20,000 a year; at the end of the year, he has $12,000 to work with. What was difficulty has become desperation.

Meanwhile, the other guy makes $1,000,000 a year. At the end of the year, he has $600,000. He's still rich.

Ah, but what do all those taxes pay for? As some have pointed out, they pay for civilization. They pay for fire safety, police protection, road repair, street signs, food inspection, pollution controls, water purification, land management, national defense, international diplomacy, scientific research, weather forecasting, emergency management, border defense, public education, libraries, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.... Yeah, there's some stuff that could and should be trimmed -- surprisingly, much of it tax breaks for corporations and obsolete military technology -- but the grand bulk of it works.

Or, it would if not the constant austerity programs put in place by elected officials trying again and again to privatize civilization for the sake of their profit-seeking corporate masters.

Government tends to be non-profit. Which is why it's stupid to run for office on the notion that you know how to run a business. The idea isn't to make the most money in the least amount of time; it's to provide services that, individually, people simply can't afford.

Do I feel bad about the idea of rich people paying more than poor people? No. The more money you have, the more you are likely to use our various infrastructures -- freeways, airports, high-speed internet, high-end electronics, food chains that deliver to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's rather than Food Lion, and on and on.

I am not trying to take money away from the rich. But Dubya and the Republican congress gave a lot of people's money to the rich with those damnable tax cuts, and then they ran two wars off the books that continue to this day, and they rewarded the financial institutions for ripping us off. And now many of the same congressional "leaders" who obligingly went along with that are the ones most loudly shrieking that workers and poor people need "austerity".

And you're playing the same damn percentage game that the media plays? "Well, you pay only one share from your ten, but I pay thirty shares from my three hundred" may mean that one person pays twenty-nine-shares less than the other, but it also means that that person is left with nine shares rather than two hundred seventy.

As the man said: It isn't class warfare -- it's math.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

"From each according to ability, to each according to need." What a lovely principle! A shame those who've tried to make it the basis of an economic system have generally proved to be corrupt and/or incompetent. Everybody should be giving to their society based on how much they are able to give, in taxes, in contributions of labor, amd in every possible way. No one should be in need, of such things as housing, food, clothing, medical care, and the opportunity to work if they are able to do so.

So, I guess I'm a Marxist. He was brilliant, but SO misunderstood!

Anything wrong with that?

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Sure.

Every Marxist state has eventually ended up killing a sizable percentage of their own population in cold blood in order to move closer to the goals you mentioned.

Soviet Russia, Mao's China,Cambodia, North Korea......

Tom T.

[jamesnorcross.livejournal.com]

Might I point out that there is one salient point that everyone seems to be overlooking? As I am certain is the case with the overwhelming majority of the members of Congress, Dr. Fleming has to maintain two residences -- one in his home state of Louisiana (Minden, according to his Wikipedia entry), and the other somewhere in the Washington, DC area. Judging from what I have read in the comments, no one seems to be taking that particular set of expenses into account.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I thought about it. By his own statements, that would seem to be in the pre-$400,000 expenses.