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20:15 October 22nd, 2008

McCain says he wants people to ‘get wealthy’

Posted by: Jeff Mason
Tags: Front Row Washington, , , , , , ,

johnmc.jpgGREEN, Ohio - John McCain wants Americans to get rich.

That was the message from the Republican presidential hopeful Wednesday as he focused again on the differences in his tax proposals and those of Democratic rival Barack Obama.

The Arizona senator has hammered Obama in recent days for a philosophy of spreading Americans’ wealth around, articulated by the Illinois senator in a now famous exchange with an Ohio man dubbed Joe the Plumber.

McCain promised at an outdoor rally with an enthusiatic crowd he and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would not make people or businesses send more money to the federal government.

“Sarah Palin and I will not raise your taxes, my friends,” he said. “We want you to get wealthy.”

Palin weighed in on the theme, too, calling Obama “Barack-the-wealth-spreader” and warning the crowd: “You have to really listen to our opponent’s words because he’s hiding his real agenda of redestributing your hard-earned money.”

The Obama camp was unmoved. At a press conference, the Illinois senator brushed off the charges as just another attack strategy by his rivals. “They have been trying to throw whatever they can up against the wall to see what sticks, and this is their latest version,” Obama said.

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Photo credit: Carlos Barria (McCain, with wife Cindy, reacts to supporters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

36 comments so far

Ha, what you are saying is mostly right.And the one about Indian Casino’s not being taxed,well he is right, they should tax them, every race in the U.S. is being taxed.And keep in mind Reagin is an indian name!! I am a senior citizen and we lost our medicare (poor mans insurance)at 63, and now can’t get it untill 65. I need it now, and have acid reflex that requires medication. It can be very serious.And paid into medicare for 47 years!!@# And to add to that we are now being entraped on our electric bills, this is how it goes.You get a discount on your electricity deposit for automatic bill pay.But if you have to get help with your electric bill you have to pay full deposit, which voids out the help you get.The elderly in Florida need help sometimes, and high blood pressure requires air conditioning.They are also a large voting group of people at this time.Keep in mind what we have comming this winter, if it continues!!While they are voting theirselves raises, and now spending up to $500,000 to spend a month at a body sculpeding health resort.

- Posted by Patricia Moore

As chinese in china, Ijust like your American know, most of chinese, special the chinese communist memeber, like to republic win, because will provide more job for chinese and will let china more power, china just need another 8 years republic as usa president,, best wish for Mccain. chinese job and china dependent on Mccain

- Posted by david

Ha, most of you are right,especially the one about the rich wife.I am elderly and they took my medicare (poor man’s insurance)away from me . I was supposed to get it at 63, and now can’t untill 65.I paid into it for 47 years.And I need it now, I have acid reflex, that takes perscription medician. And they are now entraping us with our electric bills!! This is how it works, if you get a discount with your electric bill deposit for automatic withdrawel,and you get help with your electric bill you then have to pay full deposit on your electric bill which voids everything out!!@# Thats a big thing to the elderly, who have high blood pressure, and have to have air conditioning ect Sometimes they have to have help once a year.But it is alot of no votes from the elderly .Some of them pay $500,000 for one month at a spay to get body sculped, to look good. And vote their selves more raises.

- Posted by Patricia Moore

My friends, I want you all to get wealthy! I plan to achieve this by taxing your health benefits, and continuing a $550 billion war for 100 years if need be!

- Posted by Chris

I find it fun that someone going by the name of donnerparty is saying anything I should care about. You miss the point that she DIDN’T take charity, not from her “nation” and not from the US government. So while you are racist against native americans and claim like every other obamabot that you are right and everyone else is wrong, stop to read, and think then comment.

Sadly you are a bot, so you can’t think for yourself and realize people do have problems that will be made worse by obama and his “this is my idea today” style of policy making.

- Posted by Ben

Heh, I actually agree with the principle of “I Hate Liberals”, but I think he/she is too one-sided. I agree that we should lower taxes and cut spending. What would I do if I had the opportunity? Pull out of every country that’s not asking for our help. That would include Iraq. That would include Somalia. I would stop deportation of illegal immigrants and instead charge a decent fee for all entries to the US for work. If they work illegally in the country, retroactively charge this entry fee, and retroactively apply the income tax. I’d stop fighting the war on drugs abroad and instead focus the efforts within US borders.

And no, I wouldn’t specifically target names like pelosi or mccain. And I’d understand what marxism is before flinging it like profanity.

- Posted by Mitch T

“Why work harder for little marginal gain, when you can do less and get proportionately more?”

Currently the majority of the lower class is faced with the question “why work harder when odds are you’ll never make it out of poverty?”.

Half of the American population earns less than $50,000 a year per household, and 90% report an income of less than $120,000. Why, then, should we provide incentive, unbalanced political privilege, and protection for those 5% that earn over $250,000? Why perpetuate unfavorable conditions for 9 out of 10 Americans in order to provide a lavish lifestyle for the remaining 1?

- Posted by donnerparty

HEY YOU KOOL-AID DRINKING LIBS…INSTEAD OF RAISING TAXES WHY DON’T WE JUST CUT SPENDING ON UNESSESARY PROGRAMS. SUCH AS ACORN! IF PEOPLE WANT TO VOTE LET THEM REGISTER THEMSELVES INSTEAD OF MY TAX DOLLARS GOING TO FUND A CORRUPT ORGANIZATION. HOW ABOUT THAT YOU IDIOTS!!! AND I AM SURE THERE ARE MANY MANY MORE ORGANIZATONS LIKE THIS ONE THAT CAN BE CUT AND SAVE BILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS. BUT TO THE DEMS THE ANSWER ALWAYS IS MORE TAXES, MORE TAXES!!!!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!! TO YOU SENSIBLE PEOPLE OUT THERE AND I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU MARXISTS. IF YOU WANT MORE OF PELOSI, REID, AND THE OTHER TAX RAISING LIBS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY AND TAKING MORE MONEY FROM YOU. USE YOUR HEADS PEOPLE. JOHN MCCAIN WILL CUT NEEDLESS SPENDING NOT RAISE TAXES.

- Posted by I HATE LIBERALS!!!

I’m still dying to meet a few people out of the “40%” of people who don’t pay taxes.
Unless that 40% equals cash paid illegals, I’m not buying that number.

- Posted by Dave

“giving our money to those who pay no taxes”

Like over 50% of multi-million dollar firms located within the United States?

PurlGurl did you actually investigate Obama’s tax plan? He wants to eliminate your capital gains tax (one of the biggest problems you cited). A tax increase for individuals earning over $250,000 in conjunction with the elimination of capital gains taxes will result in an almost unnoticeable net increase in taxes on the individual level. The extra funding will be put towards social welfare programs (not the kind of welfare you’re thinking), which the US has long overlooked. We spend less than 3% of our total GDP on welfare programs compared to an average of 12%, and our poverty rate shows it (http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatu res_snapshots_20060719).

Stop complaining about your dwindling portfolio and try being a human being. And, being a member of the Choctaw Nation are you really concerned about your daughter’s future? Her college will be paid for by government scholarship funds, you realize that right? While I am at $20k and climbing with student loans, I continue to pay taxes that fund scholarships for underprivileged and minority students. If you fall into the over $250k per year bracket, then the humanitarian thing to do is help fund these social programs, not become outraged that you may be called upon to support your nation as a whole instead of isolating yourself in your own little world in an enclave of Oklahoma.

- Posted by donnerparty

Higher taxes may be inevitable with all the government spending Americans are seeing. That being said - we already have one of the most aggressively progressive tax schedules in the world. Further raising the burden on the “rich” can only disincentivize people from becoming rich. Why work harder for little marginal gain, when you can do less and get proportionately more?

Hooray for socialism, God bless comerade Obama.

- Posted by da6d

Okpulot, your narrative is compelling but also lacks credibility! If you are indeed a member of the Choctaw Nation your income is most likely derived from a Casino. Indian Casinos do not pay Federal taxes! Therefore, since you failed to mention what you do for a living I took the liberty of assuming the statement: “you worked your way out of poverty“, is false!

If you are trying to tell me that you eked out a fortune on the reservation as a farmer, you are wasting your time. For many years, the state and local governments were aligned against you just as they were against Blacks. You would be hard pressed to get a loan for developing your farm and therefore be unable to buy tractors and other implements and tools necessary for productive farming! But even if you were able to attain such success you would not pay Federal Taxes on whatever you earned on an Indian Reservation.

If you left the reservation to earn a living among those heavy Americans you keep referring to you were then exposed to Federal taxation. Please elaborate on how you managed to earn more than 250,000 dollars a year outside of the reservation! Remember , you have to earn at least that much to be affected by Obama’s tax plan!

- Posted by Bobby

MR MCCAIN is praying on the dumbest of the dumb, however i appears there are not enough of them to get him elected,IN regards to the up comming race card OBAMA,S mother is as white as snow.and my white brothers have screwed up things so bad, maybe it needs someone with mixed blood to see the problems.

- Posted by d vuletic

“Obama will render our family a welfare agency, in fact. This is his plan.”

Everyone who pays any taxes serves as “A welfare agency” to the country using your extremely bad analogy. We pay for every aspect of it’s infrastructure; did you not realize this before now?

I am only further dismayed by your ignorance of how the country’s state of being effects you. Have you looked at our national debt? Have you looked at the state of our social systems? Our country needs problems to be fixed, and that requires money.

If you don’t have enough pride to be satisfied in doing such a service to your country than I suggest you get on your Yacht and leave it.

- Posted by Unbelievable

This is America, where becoming wealthy is truly possible. I’m not voting for Nobama because becoming wealthy is challenging enough without government working against you.

- Posted by SoCalGal

Come on Senator McCain.

I also want everyone to be rich!

But how many wealthy women are available for us to leave our current wives for?

- Posted by Republican VN Era Veteran

But … how … ?

Not raising taxes was what this President did, and we’re in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

- Posted by Jon

A different perspective for readers.

My husband and I were born to poverty on a rural Oklahoma farm, literally on a farm. Born ignorant and penniless, we have worked our fingers to the bone for decades to arrive at a position in life of comfortable wealth. We worked our way out of poverty to wealth, worked really hard.

Last fiscal year we paid a fifty-three percent tax rate, a combined personal income tax, capital gains tax and other taxes. More than half of our income is taken away by taxes, not including typical retail taxes. We estimate under an Obama administration, our tax liability will move up ten percent, to about a sixty-three percent tax rate. Under a McCain administration, our total tax rate will be significantly reduced.

High taxes, this annoys us. However, what really angers us is our family, including our daughter, will be carrying the weight of a majority of Americans upon our backs. Bad enough as is, but Obama will make this worse by taking away our hard earned money then giving our money to those who pay no taxes, to those who do not contribute as much to America, to those who do not work as hard as our family.

Obama will render our family a welfare agency, in fact. This is his plan.

Our family response, should Obama be elected, will be to cash out much of our stock market investments, cash out our real estate investments, cash out almost all our investment holdings. We will do this to lower and hopefully eliminate our tax exposure. Millions of other families, I am sure, will do the same. We will withdraw our family money from America.

Obama will prompt many to take actions which will lead to economic disaster for America.

Our family is extremely angry about this prospect of carrying the weight of Americans upon our backs which includes, most likely, you readers.

Our family was born to poverty. We worked our way out of poverty, on our own with no help from any nor our government. None of us have ever collected unemployment benefits, never have received food stamps nor received welfare. We have pride. We work hard. We carry our own weight as all people should.

Where is your pride? Why should our family have to carry your weight upon our backs?

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

- Posted by Purl Gurl

Newsflash: We’re not going to get rich with a deferral of a tax increase, McCain.

- Posted by kls1116

Perhaps we could provide the more truthful, full context:

“Sarah Palin and I will not raise your taxes, my friends,” he said to thousands of millionaires supporting his campaign. “We want you to get wealthier, while making the remaining 95% of Americans figure it out themselves.”

- Posted by Cander

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