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.

[underpope.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to the back-pedaling.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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...

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dude, he talks about paying 500 employees. That's not a small business by anyone's standards except Wal-Mart.

And yes, from the way he phrased it, that $400,000 is net, not gross. That makes it even worse, because he's saying he's ALREADY paid his living expenses and $400,000 on top of that isn't enough. And he also thinks we don't understand Economics 101. CWAA.

[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...."

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Being in the situation that I'm in I find it hard to have sympathy for his position. $400k a year is something a lot of people would kill for and, like Tom, if I made a tenth of that I could live quite comfortablly and have some left over to help my family more than I do at the moment.

The fact that he seems to own 23 subways means that he is not a small businessman.

Keep in mind that this man makes over $100k a yeare as his congressional salary on top of what he gets from his businesses.

[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.

[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.

[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]

Not a chance, Tom. Any investments in the business would count as expenses and thus come in BEFORE we get to $400K.

And I didn't know you knew any multimillionaires.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

And by any reasonable standard of comparison, the results are clear; but a lot of people have a vested interest in not seeing them.

I think it's more accurate to say that a lot of people have a vested interest in not seeing those results reversed.

They like the results just fine- more money for them, and who cares about anybody else?

[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.

[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.