U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
July 17, 2008 08:49 PM UTC
43 Comments
“In town, on the attack” is their banner headline for Michelle Obama being in town for a fundraiser.
“On the attack?” Puh-leeeze. I’m surprised they didn’t photoshop in an AK-47 and an Angela Davis hairstyle to match the New Yorker.
have such an inflated idea of what “middle class” means (Yesterday Chris Matthews opined about what a disappointment it must be to an average middle class person close to retirement to find out their home isn’t worth the million they thought it was worth) but lowly print journalists ought to know better.
First, 250 thousand is NOT an average middle class income. Second, when they say taxes are going up for those who make 34 thousand they are simply lying, not spinning, not stretching, just lying.
Of course for people like Wadhams it’s really much simpler than that. There is a fool proof way to tell when he is lying. Works for Schaffer, Bush, Rove, Cheney, Limbaugh and O’Reilly too, among others. If his lips are moving that’s a sure sign.
that 75K to 125K is middle class.
50K to 75K is lower middle class.
And zero to 50K is lazy to dirt poor.
Above 125K is doing good to rich, and exactly where I wish the hell I was.
Oh, and not every R lies. Most D’s do, but not R’s.
The median income in the US is about 48K. That includes both 1 income and multi income households.
That would be the center point of the middle class.
the bottom 20% is is about 20K
The top 20% household income is above 100k
if you want to get more specific I think 5% make more than 160K and maybe 2% make more than 250K
So you are just flat wrong on what is middle class
that had 1.5% of households making over $250,000.
90% of everyone in Colorado Springs are extremely wealthy then.
How else could they afford all the thousands of 400K plus houses down here? I sure can’t (my house was built in 1956) and I make right at 100K a year.
And on top of these people with the fancy nice new houses, most everyone has two or three brand new cars sitting in the triple garages.
I think your figures are tainted.
I agree that they are imperfect and COL matters, but what is middle class is generally acurate.
Colorado is in the highest quarter for COL so you could adjust the figures up a little, but I am simply pointing out that the “middle” is much lower than what you (and most people) think.
You should look at the huge huge number of new or newer homes in just my city for an example.
I am serious when I say they cost 400K and well up. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them, all with families in them, all with nice cars and toys parked in them, and all with perfect yards. And I’m sure all with mortgages and payments higher than I can afford.
Who is buying them? And if these all were part of the national housing mortgage crisis, wouldn’t most of them be in foreclosure if the people were not making the payments?
This is what leads me to believe that most of these people make at LEAST 80K or well above to even come close to being able to afford them. Anyone making 50K could not make the first three payments and would be out on their asses.
I don’t remember where you said you are from Dan, but look around at the housing subdivisions where you live. If it is anything like the Springs, there are vast numbers of very expensive houses out there. With people that seem to be doing just fine, filled with beautiful furniture, etc.
Are we all “upper middle class”? I don’t think so.
I’ve got some nice toys….nice diesel truck, 2 year old small Chevy, two Harleys and one Titan, and a 5th wheel.
But I still make payments on the trailer, both vehicle, and two of the Harleys, plus my house.
I do not consider myself rich.
It’s all those folks who got low or nothing down mortgages (when they were available) for 400k homes they otherwise couldn’t afford, and may be moving out of in the next couple of years either through foreclosure or lowball sale. And have you checked to see how many of those “brand new cars” were bought, and how many were leased, again with nothing or little down?
Colorado Springs median household income in the 2000 census was $45,081. In other words, you’d have to be making nearly six times the median household income to get hit with higher taxes under Obama’s stated plan. Didn’t hear that from Wadhams, didya?
did you know that “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?
According to quintile breakdowns (total household income, 2006):
1st: $0-$18,500 (lower)
2nd: $18,500-$34,738 (lower middle)
3rd: $34,738-$55,331 (middle)
4th: $55,331-$88,030 (upper middle)
5th: $88,030- (upper)
Only 5% of households make $157,176 or more per year.
Gecko once said his household made $100k a year. That makes him upper class!
I’ll have to take issue with splitting it up that way. My family makes around $80k a year, and we have two kids, one old car, and $4k in debt outside of our mortgage, only one TV, and an all-around modest lifestyle. Given how tight things have been lately (Thanks, W, for the devalued dollar, which is a million times more important reason for high gas prices than any drilling restriction) I can’t see ourselves as “upper middle;” that implies a comfort (and creature comfort) level we don’t enjoy.
If you go by raw quintiles for class structure, I’m (barely) upper class now. But with all of that, I can’t even begin to plan for my retirement…
The upper end of the lowest quintile is also the poverty line for a household between 3 and 4 persons.
Unless you’re in the top .1% money is always an issue. It’s at a different level but it’s an issue.
What’s also interesting is they found that for the vast majority of people, all except those at either extreeme end, more money does not change happiness.
So we’re all in this together regardless of wealth or lack thereof. (And those of us with 3 daughters will always be hurting – I’m trying to sell the idea of eloping instead of a wedding but I’m not having any luck.)
sounds pretty low for “upper” but I think it’s fair to say that the middle class should be in the neighborhood of middle so if the top 1.5% percent of us (250K and over) is “middle” what does that make the other 98.5%? Clearly using middle to describe a tiny percentage renders the term meaningless. People seem to be using it to describe what seems normal to them in a completely subjective sense with no reference to statistical norms.
In WWII a reporter asked a rifleman for his definition of a REMF (Read Echlon Mother Fucker) and his answer was “anyone who’s foxhole is behind mine.”
Virtually everyone well off views themselves as middle-class. I think most of Boulder views themselves as middle-calss even though a large percentage are clearly rich. It seems to be the nature of our society.
Half the U.S. is lazy to dirt poor.
worked our asses off to make $50K last year.
“Lazy” has to do with how hard you’re willing to work, not how much money you make.
Gecko thinks it’s appropriate to reward wealth, not work.
I think that work trumps wealth, but that’s only me.
I bet my wife and I have worked harder in our 28 years of marriage than you ever dreamed of. I earned every fucking penny without ever asking for a dime from any liberal socialist program out there. Never was without a job so I never took any unemployment comp either.
When I first moved here at 19 years old I needed a job. I looked up building contractors in the yellow pages and started in the A’s and when I reached “Ba” I was hired. Never been without a job as I could not afford to be without one.
The only time I ever received any money that wasn’t directly borrowed from and paid back to a bank was in 1980 when my dad put $3000.00 in a CD and I took out a loan against it to buy my first Harley….a 1967 Shovelhead. So I guess that was a bank loan really too.
I spent years working outside framing and siding houses in the dead of winter and heat of summer, 6-7 days a week to support my wife and kids. I used to envy ANYONE that worked inside. Even cashiers at 7/11’s as at least they were out of the heat and miserable cold.
After years of hard work and moving my way up the company I’m in now, and my wife being able to work too, we do make just under or right at 100K a year.
But don’t tell me I did not earn every penny.
I have worked for the subsidized housing of the “lazy” I’m talking about. Have you? I have cleaned after their lazy fucking worthless asses, have you? I drive by them every day as they walk in to the social services offices getting their “free money”, while they drive cars nicer than mine.
So fuck you. I can and will work you under the table any day.
I’ve worked my ass off most of my life too, and probably longer hours than you in many of those jobs. Working at a start-up tends to take 60+ hours/week.
But I also could not work for 2 years when I was diagnosed with cancer. So I understand that people need help at times. And what a cruel world we would live in if we choose to just let those people die by the side of the road.
No system is perfect. Some people will go for the maximum free ride they can. But for many people, our social safety net provides help when life throws you a curve.
I am happy to live in a society that does watch out for those who are on hard times, those who don’t have the skills or talent to make it 100% on their own, those who have all that but someone has to be in the 11% unemployed & underemployeed.
Your personal history is your efforts, your skills, and luck. Not all have the skills & luck, even if they put in the effort. A thoughtful person would understand that.
in the subsidzed housing areas? Have you ever picked up and cleaned up after these people? I have. Many are quite healthy but fucking lazy.
You deny that and you are simply denying reality.
I do know that some, and I stress some, are in deed in need of help. Fine. We have hundreds of socialist programs designed to help them. But more than most are just using the system to make their lives easier. I call that fucking lazy.
If you think I am not understanding, so be it.
I seen what you describe many times.
But that is the cost, literally and figuratively, to be able to help those that most would say truly need it.
And Ralphie never implied that you were lazy. You got really upset over nothing. Arguing who worked hard and who hasn’t is pissing into the wind. How do you compare mental hard work with physical?
Most of us have met the definition of hard work at least some of our lives. You probably don’t work as hard as you did 20 years ago; it sounds like you have more office time now.
I do not have to do the hard physical work anymore, and yes, the mental part of what I do now is probably just as tough as the physical was before.
But I took his remarks as an insult. Like I am in the free money handout line. That really sets me off. Especially when I have gone well out of my way to never take a dime from anyone that I did not earn.
And then having to do work on the places where some of these people live………I tell ya. It would turn the most “give the world away” liberal into a pessimist.
Hey, how are your folks doing?
Hot enough for ya?
Has epilepsy, seizures bad enough that she gets SSI. She resents that she has to take money from the government, but she’s physically incapable of holding a job because of the nature of her seizures.
She also has two beautiful children. Her son also gets SSI because of a heart transplant and other physical defects. He may be in that “free money handout line,” and may resent it just as his mother does. Some people who accept money from the government are the very people these programs are created for. Others just take advantage of it.
My sister used to live in low-income housing, and yes, I saw the filth. She’s been living with me for 2 1/2 years because of the conditions there. Some of the residents in her building were the same kind of people you rail against. So I see your point, but I hear from some corners that we should do away with those programs. Then I invite the people who are anti-Medicare, anti-Medicaid, and anti-Social Security to come over and tell my sister that she’s on the street because she can’t work, her year-old baby has to starve bacause her foodstamps are going away, and her son is going to die because he can’t get his $400 per month medication. I bet it’ll be enlightening.
And for the record, we live under the same roof as separate households. We split rent, but I don’t giver any other support.
As craven and opportunistic as he is, he sometimes gets it right. I used to listen to him on the radio way back before his abysmall ratings canceled him.
Anyway, he used to be against SUV’s and gas hogs. Kudos.
And, pertinent to this thread, I heard him state many times that “Fifteen percent of adult Americans cannot support themselves.” I don’t know where he came up with that number, and he wasn’t being snide or unkind. He actually acknowledged that as a society we need to take care of those who can’t fully take care of themselves.
Oh, gee, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and the Hebrew Bible. Pardon the pun, what a “revelation.”
A quarter of a million could be a middle class income, if you’re in Northern California or in the Northeast somewhere where the cost of living is insane. It’s so geographic that every discussion of numbers ends up being more academic than actual.
That said, lower taxes are good for everyone. But giving everyone an incentive by making everyone pay some taxes is good, too. Otherwise you end up having 50.00001% of the population paying no taxes, while the other 49.99999% has to pick up the slack. That’s not the formula for a healthy nation, either – just a formula for more class warfare and populism.
Go FairTax, Go.
Of course, what I consider fair and what you consider fair may be polar opposites
Would be a tax that’s not a direct tax – like the Constitution used to say – and one that everyone, even those trying to dodge taxes, would have to pay. It would eliminate both the populist absurdity and the loopholes for the rich, and apply to everyone equally under the law. Like a national sales tax a “FairTax,” if you will.
It is regressive and the percentage would be so high you would see massive cheating.
To me fair is a graduated income tax with no deductions. Absolutely none. And yes, that means I would be taxed at a higher rate than most, but I also benefit from our economic society more than most.
And the only other taxes are taxes to cover the societal costs of entity’s actions like a carbon tax; and taxes that relate directly to the use of a service like gas taxes funding transportation.
How illiberal. There’s a reason it used to be against the Constitution.
Second, your concept that you benefit more, therefore you pay more, fails at one point – if you pay more, you ought to get more, not less. But, clearly that’s neither just nor equal, and that’s not how a liberal government ought to work: everyone ought to be equal under the law, and some should not be more (or less) equal than others. The only way to do that is if everyone pays the same percentage.
When you get government involved in taxing pet projects, whether it be the Global Warming hoax or taxing one product more than another, you allow for lobbyists to get loopholes into the system – which ruins your whole goal of no deductions or cheating rather quickly.
Finally, how many times have you cheated the sales tax? More or less often than people “cheat” on income taxes now?
Why tax everyone at the same percentage. To be truly equal, require everyone to pay the exact same number of dollars yearly.
Lets see, 2007 spending was 2.8 trillion. We have a population of 300 million. So we each (including children) just write a check to the federal government for $9,333.33.
You suggest equal. That is brutally equal. Of course a family of 4 with the parents working at minimum wage jobs owes $37,333.33 which may be more than they earn but why let little facts get in the way of your solution. You want equality!!!
Isn’t equal? I kind of think it is. But I guess 50% and 0% are equal in your world, so I can see why I’d be confused.
And choose to not accept any other. I was just pointing out the stupidity of that.
I’m in favor of equality, that what we give is equal to what we gain from society. That what we give causes any equal amount of economic impact on each of us.
There’s nothing about your “equal” that makes it any more richeous than any other approach.
You seem to think that what you get society gives you. I tend to think that what I get, I earn for myself, and the only think that society gives toward that end is the rule of law and equality of opportunity, both of which apply equally to all.
The former lends itself to accepting socialism, the latter to preferring liberalism.
What fucking bullshit. Society has done nothing for you, right? Probably a free $72,000 (current value) education, clean water so you didn’t get sick, sewage systems, air traffic control, weights and measures protection, the courts, your military paycheck and training, on and on and on….but no, you did it all yourself.
How much was that helicopter training worth on the free market, anyway? That you can then use as a civilian for a job?
Your myopia should be enough to stop you from qualifying to fly……
Everything would be traded under the table, leading to the need to vastly increase enforcement. But the Republican dream is to shut down the IRS, so instead we’d be staffing up the FBI or the US Marshal Service and the “free market” would become a police state.
Imagine what happens when it is a 25% tax on everything. Compliance totaly breaks down beacuse cheating is so lucrative.
Whether it’s new, used, or under the table, someone bought it somewhere first.
That would be news to virtually every working American, who pays Social Security and Medicare taxes off the first dollar of earned income. Add in sales, property and use taxes, and you’re unlikely to find many Americans who don’t pay taxes.
Neither is it a formula for a healthy nation to make shit up to foment resentment against those less fortunate — or, as your conservative brethren term them, “the lazy.”
I didn’t know Obama’s plan was talking about all of those taxes, too. It’s not? Oh. Forgive me for comparing apples to apples.
I think it’s healthy that if someone’s paying into the system under threat of force, everyone should pay into the system under threat of force. That’s not fomenting resentment – that’s good sense. People who are getting a free lunch will act like it, and continue to pay no price for it.
Or, we could apportion votes by the amount of taxes you pay. I’d be for that.
Way back when my mother was working Rose May, a large black woman, cleaned our house. She did so for twelve years. She had arthritis.
Yeah, real lazy.
Income taxes are only part of the picture. The richer you are, the less out of your income you have to pay in social security. Low and truly middle income earners pay social security taxes on every penny they earn. And most wealthy people find plenty of perfectly legal ways to get out of paying income tax that approaches the levels associated with their incomes. As Warren Buffet once noted, he pays a lower percentage in income tax than does his secretary.