Obama skewers McCain over definition of ‘rich’

August 19, 2008

Following up on an item from the other day

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, the Rev. Rick Warren asked Barack Obama and John McCain the same two-word question at Saturday night’s at Saddleback Church: “Define rich.”

After teasing Rick Warren a bit about his book sales, Obama explained that if he were elected, those who make $150,000 or less will see a tax cut under his administration, and those making more than $250,000 or more will see a “modest increase,” as part of the broader effort to “create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.”

McCain was also asked to “define rich,” and he offered a rambling, 500-word response , which, among other things, railed against a “government take-over” of the healthcare system, federal grants to study “the DNA of bears in Montana,” the price of gas, and the length of Congress’ August recess. Eventually, McCain gave an answer: “So I think if you’re just talking about income, how about $5 million.” He said it with a straight face, but the audience laughed.

I suggested Sunday the response might “come back to bite McCain on the butt.” Yesterday, Obama seemed to be on the same page.

“[McCain] was on a panel the other day with me — Rick Warren, some of you may have seen it — and Rick Warren asked him, ‘How do you define rich?’ He said, maybe he was joking, he said, ‘$5 million.’ Which I guess, if you’re making $3 million a year, you’re middle class,” Obama said. “But that’s reflected in his policies. For people who are making more than $2.5 million, he’s giving folks a $500,000 tax break.”

The substance of this is what really matters. Maybe McCain was kidding; I don’t know. But McCain is completely serious about tax policies that treat millionaires as some kind of at-risk group in need of government assistance. I don’t know if he actually believes people who make $3 million a year are middle class, but McCain acts like he does.

I’d add that Obama’s comments yesterday appeared to be part of a sharper edge to Obama’s campaign since his return from vacation.

Time’s Karen Tumulty, traveling with the Obama campaign yesterday, reported:

Barack Obama seems to have gotten the message about his message. In the past few days, amid growing concerns among Democratic allies, Obama has begun campaigning in a different gear, one that is more aggressive in attacking John McCain and more focused on the economic concerns of struggling Americans. […]

[A]s he prepares to name his vice presidential running mate and formally accept the Democratic nomination next week in Denver, Obama is clearly campaigning in a different mode. Where he would rarely even mention McCain in the past, Obama now openly mocks him. McCain boasts of putting country first, Obama said, “but I have to say, it’s not an example of putting country first when you say George Bush’s economic policies have shown ‘great progress.'” As for McCain’s contention that Obama would be “an economic disaster,” he retorted: “Mr. McCain, let me explain to you. The economic disaster is happening right now. Maybe you haven’t noticed.”

There is also a more populist tinge to Obama’s message, as he tries to draw a clearer and more detailed distinction between his policies and McCain’s

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, particularly on taxes. McCain, he says, is promoting “$300 billion worth of tax breaks for the same folks who’ve been getting tax breaks under George Bush.” And he told the crowd that a top McCain economic adviser (a reference to comments by former Senator Phil Gramm) “is calling you whiners…This guy obviously doesn’t pump his own gas. He obviously doesn’t do his own shopping. He’s obviously not paying his own bills.”

While Obama downplayed the significance of Bill Clinton’s presidency when he was campaigning for the nomination against Clinton’s wife, he now cites it as an economic marvel. “During Bill Clinton’s era in the 1990s, incomes for the average family went up by $6,000,” he said. “During George Bush’s reign in the White House, we have seen the average family income go down by $1,000.”

That last paragraph — comparing the economic records of the last two presidents — was especially interesting

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, given that it was nearly identical to the language Paul Krugman recently recommended Obama use.

I mention all of this in part because there’s a growing impression in some circles that Obama seems reluctant to mix it up. That’s possible

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, but I think it’s just as likely Obama is just getting warmed up.

Karen Tumulty wrote: “While Obama downplayed the significance of Bill Clinton’s presidency when he was campaigning for the nomination against Clinton’s wife, he now cites it as an economic marvel. “During Bill Clinton’s era in the 1990s, incomes for the average family went up by $6,000,” he said. “During George Bush’s reign in the White House, we have seen the average family income go down by $1,000.”

You know that’s why Bill is really peaved with Barack. Obama simply disdained the Clinton years during the Primary, even going so far as calling Reagan “Transformational” while ignoring Bill Clinton. Now Obama is running as if he should get credit for the 1990’s in the General Election.

Nice of you to finally notice Barry!

  • Hammer McAce’s 10 homes. Keep putting that add up. Show it in the swing states. Class warfare is a GOP hallmark. hammer these rich ass holes. $5Mill. That’s peanuts to guys like McAce and Bushit…

  • I think that this desultory answer, punctuated by “$5 million,” and comprised almost entirely with rote phrases with which Hon. Sen. McCain fashions his stump speeches (something that was ostensibly against the rules of this forum), was covering the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to both not look ridiculous and also give an answer which did not classify himself as “rich.” The obvious impossibility of achieving these mutually exclusive goals drove the extended and meandering response, IMHO.

  • He’s not ‘attacking John McCain,” he’s attacking ‘John McCain’s position on the issues,’ which is what he said he would do, which is what he SHOULD do, and what he will continue to do more and more as people begin — after the Conventions, to pay more and more attention.

    He’s been saying from the beginning that ‘politics is about issues, and governing, not trivia.’ (That’s why I’m voting FOR him — what a refreshingly new experience, as I’ve been saying for months.)

    And meanwhile, McCain makes so many blunders — the latest the attempt to pressure NBC — and while Keith’s ‘special comments’ are his own, DON’T tell me last night’s wasn’t ‘approved by’ the head of NBC News — that he gets called on that I wonder if that satirical piece I did on McCain deliberately ‘throwing the election to get back at Bush’ a week or so ago might not be true.

  • Awesome!

    Yesterday’s roster of postings were so uniformly depressing that I was tempted to write in asking for you to throw us a bone…

    this one is not just a bone, it’s a big fat juicy turkey leg!!

    Give ’em hell Barry!

  • Wow, thank’s Lance, that’s a completely blithering observation of typical predictable campaign nuance that has nothing at all to do with this post or this election.

    In what ever way possible, since there won’t be any help from the MSM, America needs to see every second of McCain’s answer on this question. Any middle class American can see for his or herself right there: John McCain is cluelessly wealthy, just like George W.

    If the Obama campaign wants to win, just drive that point all the way to November.

  • Did Krugman recommend Obama use that language? The link goes to an August 4 blog post by Krugman who merely quotes Obama using that phrase in a different speech – and even criticizes him for saying ‘the 90’s’ instead of ‘while a democrat was president’. It’s possible that Krugman suggested it, but the link doesn’t make that clear.

  • Lance,
    Do you think that Obama downplayed the impact or admiration for the Clinton presidency during the primaries since he was running against someone who happened to have the same last name as Bill? Maybe such credit would have been a boon to the opponent who happened to be named “Clinton” as well and would not have benefitted Obama? Maybe?

  • It seems to the the ‘rats’ only card, the politics of class envy We can not tax our way to economic prosperity. The way to a better economy os lower energy prices. Obama wants higher energy prices..

  • If he’s going to have a “sharper edge,” why didn’t Obama get up in front of the VFW Convention and say something like this:

    “John McCain lied to you. He not only didn’t support the 21st Century GI Bill, he tried his best to kill it and then avoided voting on it – as he has with every other vote this year including the most important altenative energy bill that he claimed to support, yes, when we needed 60 senators to put America on the path to energy independence, there were 99 present and one missing. John McCain. Just like he was missing when it came to voting for the GI Bill, like he was missing when it came to voting for increased care for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. John McCain talks a great talk, but he doesn’t walk that talk. I voted for the GI Bill. I voted for the increased care for veterans. I voted to start working on our energy problem. John McCain didn’t.”

    Now that would have gotten some press. Unlike the way it’s playing out now, with McCain’s lies getting headlines and Obama’s truths getting also-rans.

  • Did McCain say “$5 million” or did he say “making $5 million per year”?

    I guess some may think that trivial, but I don’t. Some might consider it class warfare, but I think it is critical. Family farms can exist on land valued well over $5 million. Heck, there is people living in what I would call slums in California, who claim their home is over $500,000. Personally, if I could afford a $500,000 home, I would consider myself rich. I can’t. My home barely eeks out at $100,000.

    However, there is a difference between someone who has a net worth of over $500,000 or $5 million, and a person who makes $5 million a year. I’m happy to hear McCain say $5 million is rich. Hopefully that means he’ll support raising the death tax to over $5 million before the government takes more money from families. Otherwise, small family farms will continue to lose valuable property to robber barrons like T. Boone Pickins.

  • Wonderful. Obama, a totalitarian terrorist bent on killing Americans in our homes and on our our streets and using our own resources to do this from inside America as acting President, no less.

    And now he doesn’t want Americans to profit from their freedom of enterprise and their lifes work.

    Oh, that’s bright.

    Why don’t Americans just nuke ourselves now so Obama and his benefactors can get the job done without the election woes?

    AMERICA WON’T LET HIM, THAT’S WHY!!!!!!!!

  • DavidL, just as McCain, you derive ridiculous conclusions from statements of sound judgment. Saying that anyone other than a major oil executive would “want higher energy prices” is simply a brazenly ridiculous statement. Obama has a comprehensive plan to achieve energy independence, while McCain simply wants to scour American soil in a scorched Earth policy to use every last drop of oil we have. Then, when he’s dead, our grandkids will be left trying to invent some new energy source.

    Your argument fits perfectly into Phil Gramm’s vision of a nation of whiners. You are willing to sacrifice our ecology and exhaust our resources all in order to save yourself a few dimes on gas. Republicans, I think, would be happier if you would just withdraw McCain as nominee and run Exxon-Mobil for President. But then, Republican happiness is elusive is it not?

  • In the one minute it took McCain to say $5M is rich, I went from middle class to poverty.

    McCain’s economic plan sucks.

  • DavidL,

    Do you represent the best of your side? Because that was pathetic. You misspelled the word ‘is.’ It’s two effing letters. You also failed at making sentences or sense, and you didn’t even plug the whiny talking point that McCain was only joking, therefore, in the vacuum where your brain should be you feel he is immune to criticism.

    Seriously, you don’t get any McPoints for that comment. C’mon now, he expects better of you.

  • DavidL, the CB’s own example of Poe’s law in action. Do you really think that, assuming it exists, we’re to the right of the peak of the Laffer curve? St. Ronald apprently didn’t when he raised taxes in the 1980’s (thrice). And the idea isn’t to tax our way to prosperity. Read up on a little something called the New Deal. By using tax money to expand infrastructure, FDR actually helped to end the Great Depression. And we got all sorts of cool stuff, like the freeway system, out of it.

    Speaking of infrastructure, do you really think that people who make more money, and who take a greater advantage of the common social services provided by tax revenue, shouldn’t pay more? After all, the guy who owns the store benefits more from the people driving on tax-payer built roads to work at the store and buy the stuff. He benefits more from tax-payer funded air traffic control, which allows planes to deliver his goods to sell. And, the poor folk working at the store are all using those roads far less when they cram onto a bus to get to work then the guy who drove his SUV there with only him in the car.

    Finally, if Obama were to, say, use the increased federal revenue from higher gas taxes to fund the creation of a more sustainable (and cheaper) energy infrastructure, that provided things like solar, wind, and yes, even nuclear power, then how’s that a bad idea? Hey, we might even get some jobs out of it as unemployed housing contractors and builders are put to work pouring concrete for hydro-electric dams, building windmills, and solar plants. Sort of like back in the 1930’s, when we got those freeways. Or, we could go into hock paying for oil derricks off the coasts, that won’t produce the energy we need, will spill oil into the ocean, and will eventually run dry. That’s a much better use of funds, right?

  • Rege @12 – Thanks. The key difference that I missed was that he called out the actual presidents. Much appreciated.

  • Crap. In the time I took to write that, Xacier Royce provided a better example than DavidL! Oh well, sub one for the other. Makes little difference.

  • I don’t think arguing about what “rich” is serves any purpose except to distract the voters from the obvious fact that McCain favors the rich at the expense of the middle class, and Obama needs to hammer home what’s happened to the middle class during the Bush years, that McCain not only wants to continue the erosion, but exacerbate it. Come on, dammit Democrats, stop wilting every time the Republicans cry “class warfare.”

    And DavidL #11, we can’t untax our way to economic prosperity either. Look what happened in the Bush years. Yes, Democrats have accepted Reagan’s premise that government is always bad, never good, that taxes are always wasted, never productive, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. And it isn’t true.

    What we really need to do is work for the general welfare of the people (it’s in the Preamble to the Constitution) and not worry about ideology. I don’t give a damn whether the private sector, the public sector, or both solve the problem. I want the problem solved, and in the best, most efficient way. That’s how we ought to approach governance.

    The problem today is that Democrats are afraid to be Democrats. They are afraid of being called “liberal” or “progressive.” And it makes winning really difficult, because they campaign as Republican lite.

    One could make a case that the Democrats have morphed into the Republican Party of half a century ago, and that the left has disappeared from the political scene entirely. Well, it has. How does the media describe us? As fringe, shrill extremists. Isn’t that so?

    All this to say that Obama is straddling a line, afraid to be what he ought to be for fear of losing. And he may be right. It might just be that liberalism is dead in this country. For good. That it can’t come back and won’t.

  • After having one resident of 1600 Pennsylvania who we all wanted to do keggers with, we are now being offered a candidate who we can enjoy performing on America’s Funniest Presidents. That John McCain is one funny dude, ain’t he?
    Makes me feel a whole lot better about the world and economic situation we are in when all I have to do is just laugh at it and it all goes away – like our savings, health insurance and jobs.

    As that famous comedian, Bugs Bunny, used to say; “What a maroon”!.

  • I hope this allows the Dems suffering from the vapors a chance to reconsider and gain some confidence. Jeez–campaigns swing up and they swing down. McCain had two of the past three weeks basically to himself while Obama was out of the country and on an exotic vacation. McCain’s spending money like there’s no tomorrow. And he isn’t making up any ground.

    Now Obama is ready and rested. His veep pick will dominate the weekend and the Dem convention promises to be rockin’. In contrast, the GOP convention starts on Labor Day and ends on the NFL kickoff Thursday. Who’s going to watch that? Also, McCain promises to make his veep pick the day after Obama’s acceptance speech. I can’t wait for that contrast! Bring on the green backdrops!

    Obama’s gloves are coming off and the Straight Bull Express won’t know what passed it on the highway. Look at the lunacy of the trolls above on this thread. It’s all they got and it won’t work if we don’t let it get to us. Confidence, people.

  • Bugs Bunny used to say “What an Ultra-Maroon”.

    Your name really isn’t “maya”, as you claim, of course, is it, troll. It really is “maroon”, or more accurately, “Ultra-Maroon”.

    You should stop trying to study Americas cartoons, whereby you’ve just failed, and start studying who Americans really want in office. And, guess what? We DON’T want Obama!!

    Try to study that to get it down. Then go home and tell everyone.

  • If anyone reading this knows Mr. Royce personally, please see if you can get him back on his meds.
    Whew.

    Now, as for issues, since we no longer want mediocre (or piss-poor) legacies in the White House (i.e. George W, Bush), we will need to elect Obama.

    It’s so sad when a bright, self made man gets slandered by the people who claim to believe in the American dream. And they won’t talk issues, of course.

  • I can’t believe we’re still talking about Reagan being transformational as if there’s some question. He was, and a lot of the crap we’re drowning in today is the result of that transformation. Clinton slowed down our march to the right but he didn’t stop it by any means.

    As for Obama, I loved that he acknowledged McCain might have been joking with the 5M figure — but that it didn’t matter.

  • You should stop trying to study Americas cartoons, whereby you’ve just failed, and start studying who Americans really want in office. And, guess what? We DON’T want Obama!! -Xavier Royce

    Perhaps you should take a gander at some recent polls before insulting maya.

    The American people do want Obama.

    Mayhaps you should go back to watching cartoons and let the adults talk.

  • Clearly by his statement, Xavier Royce only counts Bush-style “Amurkans” and it is true they think they have taken over the entire country. As with some of the other trolls, I invite Xavier to return on November 5 to tell us what the goon squad wants.

  • The fact that McCain would “joke” about five million dollars and the middle class demonstrates his is cluelessly wealthy. We’ve had a cluelessly wealthy president for nearly 8 years. Anybody else tired of it?

    I hear McCain just announced Exxon-Mobil as his running mate.

  • I definitely agree that Obama is just warming up. As I keep saying, for most voters the presidential race doesn’t start until after August. Everything before that is just pre-race positioning. It’s not good to fall behind before the race begins, but it’s a mistake to give it everything you’ve got before you even get started.

    Especially as political attacks generally have a very short shelf life. Once you hit your opponent with something, you generally have a week at most to keep using it before you have to come up with something else. And if you throw everything at once, your attacks won’t mean as much and you’ll run out of them early.

  • Amen, my good doctor, amen.

    After Obama the baby-killer (coming soon), they won’t have much but reruns (Rev. Wright returns!).

  • Fuck Mcain, he’s a half ass GWB republican piece of shit.

    Fuck all republicans, if you havent got the message by now your party is a bunch of assholes, who are bent on getting richer and using the common people as slaves.

    Wise Up america and see the country and world for what it really is.

  • It is irrelevant whether or not millionaires “need” a tax cut. Leave aside the fact that government shouldn’t be in the business of allowing people to keep what it thinks they need. That’s called marxism, which was a failure in case you haven’t heard. McCain’s point is that tax increases of any kind slow economic growth, which hurts everybody, not just the rich. Obama wants to redistribute wealth by taking more from those who make it (usually by providing something useful to society), in order to give it to people who don’t. This reduces efficiency in the economy, which means less productivity, less jobs. It’s also unfair because the top earners already pay the lion’s share of taxes, paying for entitlement programs and services which other people use. Obama wants to make it even more unfair.

  • Ive read all the posts on here and it seems to me that the majority of the people who are writing here are fairly intelligent. (with the exception of a few maroons.) What I want to know is this, why is it that I cant see any reason too vote for either of these guys? What I mean is, after 200 some odd years of existence, the United States of America has gone through a transformation that every single government at one time or another has gone through. We are so caught up with what everyone else thinks, and how people are going to react if we say this or dont say that. I want to see a president who can prove to me that he stands for the old ways, the way of the gun and the pen. Someone should run not to be popular, but run because they truly care about this country and all that inhabit it. Why are our candidates so scared to say what they really think? If you are so worried about whether everyone is going to like you, then you already lost. I want to see a president that has something new to say, someone that holds the core values of what this country is supposed to be about in his heart, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. I’m not going to give either of these men my vote, because in the long run, neither of them is going to change a damn thing. The country needs a wake up call, people need to get out of their Air Conditioned Mcdonalds ridden life style, and realize that we are all in this together, and if we dont have a leader who can show us what we need to see, and not what we want to see, then we might as well call London and ask for a refund. Thanks for reading my thoughts.

  • “Rich” is a very relative term. Did you know that if you make more than $25,000 a year; you are in a class that includes only 1% of the global population? On a global scale, nearly everyone on this form is “rich” (the rest are “middle class”).

    Being rich is not evil. It’s what you do with your wealth that reveals good or evil. Tax brackets penalize people for producing. People who make more than 5 million a year tend to be the ones who employ others. We may want to be careful not to implement tax schemes that take away their incentive to create opportunities. Otherwise we may all wake up some day to find that we have become government employees.

    “…it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.” –Spoon boy-

  • Correction to my last post:

    It should have said:

    a class that includes only 10% of the global population?

  • I would like to steal rich people’s thunder with a point here. Rich people don’t always get rich by producing, innovating, inventing, or employing others. A fucking myth, this is. They routinely make their companies appear to be doing great by making horrible financial decisions, and then laying off 5000 workers to cover the spread. Either way, they collect at the end of the year. Generally speaking, some of the richest people in this country get rich by graduating from exclusive Ivy League schools and being annointed CEO of a company they had absolutely no hand in creating. I call them trust fund CEOs. The CEO of Exxon had nothing to do with Exxon’s success, he doesn’t even have anything to do with the actual day-to-day operation of the company. Operators and contractors like my stepfather and most of the population of La Porte, Deer Park, and Baytown, TX are the ones that ensure Exxon keeps running oily smooth. The CEO of Exxon though, sitting in his boardroom in a leather clad chair caressing polished wood desktop rakes in millions and millions EVERY YEAR while the peons are paid 50-80K on average while risking being blown up in plants like British Petroleum’s refinery in Texas City, which has one of the worst track records of blowing up people’s lives in the world. Perhaps if some of the bonuses the bigwigs collected were redistributed into updating grandfathered plants’ infrastructure(thanks again, GDub), they wouldn’t have to worry about that so much. The ultrarich, ironically(I won’t attempt to define) are generally the good guy geniuses that actually created something. They are the one’s with the investment capital to create something out of dirt. An executive worth ten million is rich, but not rich enough to change the world, and generally had little to no hand in making his company such a success.

  • To add to my rant….imagine a world wherein execs were capped at something ridiculous to the common man like $1.5 million a year(someone argue that you can’t live on that, pleeeeease), scrub their arbitrary bonuses that they get whether they perform or not, and redistribute that $5-15 million(depending on who we’re dealing with) into the worker’s pockets and back into the company. Suddenly a staff of 1000 workers that averaged $50K/year are making between $55-65K/year. Over a lifetime of employment, that extra 5-10 thousand could be saved into hundreds of thousands, invested into millions, or even give a common worker with a good idea enough money to start his own company that could, in turn, employ another 1000 people. Rather than one man buying one Maybach benefitting one dealership of one company, 500 people could spend thousands at dozens of locations. Now I’m no economist but……

  • Listen if you really want to know what rich is:

    To be rich is to have enough income on a regular bases for you and your family to live comfortable according to your lifestyle, be able to help at let one other family , and able to leave an inhertiance for your children’s children. Without this kind of income, you are the poor.

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