One Of My Favorite Penzance Quotes
Sep. 19th, 2011 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertom"I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest":
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.
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.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.
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.”
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.
Well...
Date: 2011-09-20 07:30 am (UTC)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.