OK, but to be fair, he might have been using "feed my family" to mean "feed, house, clothe, and educate my family," don't you think? Not that $200K isn't a lot of money even for all that, but one or two kids in college, say, would take up a significant chunk of that cash.

Of course. Mostly I just think he was stupid for talking about all of it. When she started with "your businesses brought in $6.3m last year," he should have just said that was gross not net, and shut it down.

Yeah, Kate, I agree (edited to take out the part where I decided your rigthness, which I'm pretty sure you didn't need me to do). I think his point about $6.3M actually ending up as $200K for him is one maybe worth making in terms of understanding what owning a business really means. I think not understanding how it would sound and be reported was his mistake here. I mean, dude, you make 4x median(?) income just from your businesses -- understand that it will be hard for most people to sympathize. But, maybe the reporter was asking about him specifically.

What I want to know, really, is how much does he pay in business taxes, and how much would an increase of x% really affect his bottom line -- how much would it actually affect that final number? Would he really have to lay off people? Sure, his business decisions might be affected, but does that just mean you don't replace some equipment as soon as you'd like?

Your business made $6.3 million. He says, Sure, but after I pay the employees, etc., my takehome is only a fraction of that -- $600K. So then by the time he feeds his family, he only has $400K left to reinvest in the business.

I'ma go out on a limb and say that a $6.3 million/year business is not "small" in any sense of the word that matters.

guess what, it just meets the definition of small business:

[link]

under 500 employees, making less than $7 million.

And WHY, again, do people living below the poverty level continue to vote for these assholes? WHY?!? Because they DO. They just. keep. voting. for assholes who literally don't care if their constituents starve to death. WHY?

I think part of it is that they are choosing between a well-oiled PR machine that is channeling their anger toward people in the same class and poorer while also intimating that they could aspire to be the $6.3 million dollar man and telling them that progressives think they are stupid, and progressives calling them stupid. We do not have the same well-oiled PR machine.

I think the left should start fighting on a morals basis. Not exclusively religious morals, but we could point out how Jesus' teachings align with helping the poor. If people want to get all het up about immorality, let them get het up about the immorality of convincing people to take mortgages they know they can't afford, taking bailout money and then not paying taxes, taking tax cuts made for "job creation" and then making people work longer and harder for less money, or sending work overseas, of letting people who do not have health insurance die or go bankrupt, of letting children in what is supposed to be the "best country in the world" have such a high poverty rate/

You got a problem with that?

I'm just saying...

My Daily Show FB feed just linked to a blurb about the show's two Emmy awards last night, and it had a video link to the Palin/Trump pizza bit. That will never stop making me laugh and laugh.

I read all the insightful comments on the Fleming quote, and it still just fills me with rage. He CAN afford a tax hike if his biz makes 6.3M and he has 400K left after he feeds and educates his family.

I don't care. Even if he started out with a spiral notebook and ate Ramen for 12 years, good for him! Yay. But he can afford a tax increase.

Also, on a happier note, Kathy, rock on this your new car! I want to get Dan a auto start for his car SO BAD this year for Xmas, since my poor skinny, cold love leaves for work at 6 am on the cold, icy Kansas winter mornings. I think you will love it!

and forgive me, but what is the tax increase? Like $6,000? or is it $60,000. Either way, he can fucking afford it.

Write off some equipment and be done with it.