Dissent Of The Day

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16 Oct 2008 05:21 pm

A reader writes:

I think all of your posts today about "Joe the Plumber" and McCain's lack of "vetting" is sort of missing the point. I'm an Obama partisan, so I don't relish defending the Mac Attack, but it really is easier (and more politically expedient) to say "Joe the Plumber" than "Joe Worzelbacher", and besides, you can concede that he was using this particular Joe to stand in for the more general working class Joes. Does it really matter that his birth name is Sam, or that he's not licensed to be a plumber, that he makes less than 250k? Really? McCain may have been talking directly to him, but that was a rhetorical strategy, to speak to all those like him. Seems like a lot of sound and fury (signifying nada) to me.

Fair points, but if you live by the game of anecdote, you also have to die by it. As for actual arguments, it seems that Joe would actually get a tax cut under Obama, and that his general argument - against all progressive taxation - would apply to McCain as much to Obama. For the record, I also oppose punitive, aka "progressive," taxation. But that's not what McCain is proposing. So what was Joe's point? That once you raise taxes on anyone earning over $250,000 a year, there is no stopping you? I don't get it.

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