Just as well Adorable Child decided to watch Aladdin tonight instead of the last presidential debate; it would have bored her to tears. If you opted for Aladdin this evening as well, the transcript is available here.
The only thing new that I heard tonight was Joe the Plumber. Oh… and Joe. The Plumber. And then they talked some more about Joe the plumber again.
Since Polimom and Dear Husband have a business situation similar to Joe’s, it’s only fair to mention that a tax bracket change isn’t usually considered a make-or-break decision point. If you’re hovering that close to the profit line, it may be that the business isn’t quite ready for that next level yet. (Added: See here.)
Let’s see… Anybody notice anything besides Joe?
How about the difficulty McCain seemed to have containing his left lip-sneer when he was hitting back with vouchers in DC? It manifested overtly twice — once one he was directly addressing Obama, and almost immediately again when he mentioned the Democrats. I’m having trouble seeing this guy as a bipartisan leader, personally.
Barack Obama, by contrast, seemed totally unrattled — so much so that at one point, I thought he might actually laugh at McCain (a very bad idea, imho!). On the other hand, he swatted the long-awaited Ayers bomb down with complete aplomb, making the entire issue look pretty danged trivial.
Ducks. Water. Backs.
I did see one area, though, where the recent GOP attacks may have had some effect: Obama’s policy descriptions tonight were framed very moderately. From charter schools to late term abortions, he articulated what I consider to be some common ground. Although they weren’t new positions, they haven’t gotten a lot of play, so those may help undecided voters worried that he was radically left.
All in all, I have to call this for Obama.
First impressions of the last (finally!!) debate
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ABC has a report that:
1) Joe is buying the buisness for $250k-$280k
2) it makes no where near the amount to get him hit with the next income bracket
3) in a quote he says that he ‘Is worried about when he does make $250k+ a year’
Basically Joe wants flat taxes all across the board. The single parent making minimum wage should pay the same percentage as the CEO bringing in $15million a year….in Joe’s world.
My answer for the problem is way to simple for someone like Joe. I think he should get a $200k salery, and take any extra cash and put it back into building up the buiness. If he can’t get by on $200k, then pay the extra so that the people making les can afford to pay him.
Bah! If this guy was seriously going into business for himself, and the ~$900 difference he’d see in his annual taxes on $280K will make or break him, he’s SOOO not ready to “up-size”.
However, it’s fair to say that although Joe turns out to not represent a living, breathing small business person, he does represent many people’s feelings about progressive taxation, generally. I’ve read a number of articles about him today, and in one of them he said that even though he’s actually part of the group that is targeted for the cuts, he doesn’t like it that it comes at somebody else’s expense.
That is actually something I can relate to. His rather inflated view of himself at the moment? Not so much.