It looks like there is a new Republican working class hero: Tito the Builder. His name comes up now in all the Republican speeches and has been a rallying cry all week.
He is almost a home grown hero, discovered right here in Prince William County last weekend during the McCain rally.
The irony is staggering. Tito the Builder is actually Tito Munoz, we assume from Prince William County. Tito came to the rally dressed for the part of new Republican icon. The irony? Tito is an immigrant from Colombia. I guess he doesn’t know that Corey Stewart and John Stirrup belong to this same Republican party as Senator McCain?
According to Trailhead, the campaign blog in Slate:
Munoz showed up at a McCain rally in Woodbridge, Va. last weekend dressed in a yellow hardhat and orange surveyor vest, decked out in McCain-Palin flair and sporting a sign that read “Construction Worker for McCain-Palin” on one side and “Media—Tell the Whole Story!” on the other. During McCain’s stump speech, Munoz was behind the candidate, alongside “Phil the Bricklayer” and “Rose the Teacher.”
The video shows a verbal argument, mainly aimed at the press and led by Tito the Builder. It is hard to believe all this was going on in Prince William County. Expect to see Tito as the new mascot for HSM.
Hit it, Tito!
Some of this stuff you just can’t make up.
[sarcasm button on]
How can you tax SS when we’ve all paid into it as we’ve paid taxes? Isn’t this taxing TWICE?
I think it is ridiculous to have to pay ss on any kind of retirement.
A PW Resident, I don’t have any clue why there is the ceiling on SS. It seems very low to me. People start howling like stuck pigs when discussion comes up about raising that ceiling. I think it ought to go a lot higher before people are off the hook.
If I understand regressive taxes, this seems like the quintessential regressive tax.
PWC Resident said:
Since we have seemed to have gone to payroll taxes, I have a question for everyone. How do you feel about Federal retirees who have to pay social security taxes on post-retirement earnings in a job but cannot receive social security benefits?
Wow, I had no idea about that! So you are saying that retirees who hold down a job pay SS taxes, but then don’t get any benefits from it? Something is wrong there if that is the case.
And, Twinnad, if I understood your comments, I agree that the upper limit for taxing for social security should be raised. Does anyone actually know why it stops at a certain income level? It has been around since social security started but I don’t know why the ceiling exists.
No, I don’t know why it stops at the level it does. I do know it gets raised, possibly annually, a little, but really, I don’t understand why it does stop. If SS needs the money for the coffers, why are they cuttting out everyone that makes over $100K but less than $250K? That seems like the only way to shore up SS. To me, that seems like a viable option. Will people love it? No, but what else can be done?
God knows many people don’t want to increase the labor force through immigration and our population will be shrinking, not growing, if we don’t import workers.
Twinnad, yes it happened in the 80’s when the US Congress/President put in a penalty if there is a Federal retirement. I am not talking about double dipping (although that was the reported reason) since it is paying SS taxes for a different enployment. Even under the old retirement system, Federal employees put in more money to the retirement system than people put into SS and there was no cap on the contribution like SS has. Then if a Fed retires and goes to work at Giant Food, they pay on their new employment SS taxes but can’t file for SS. So it is taking money from employees to pay for other peoples’ retirement.
IVAN, I emailed both senators and my representative within the past year. I got a pretty good brush-off from the senators and never heard from the representative.
Sorry folks about continuing the conversation about this, I just saw the change in subject and thought I would drop in.–I will stop now
Anonimom:
“They erroneously talked about her banning books.”
Since when is banning books eronneous?
“They dragged her over the coals for her choice to campaign even though her daughter was pregnant. ”
No, they rightfully questioned her platform of abstinence only education, when her own daughter obviously didn’t benefit from it! He daughter was a shining example of how abstinence-only is ineffective!
“They even questioned whether her son wasn’t really her daughter’s son.”
And that was low, agreed there.
“Wow, if that is being “spellbound” then I hate to see what they do when they don’t like you. They were calling her a failure before she even gave her acceptance speech.”
All of that media attention focused around her policies. if you don’t like that, maybe you should re-examine he platform and why her policies, for which she stands, are so ruthlessly challended.
I think the media has been more than fair to Sarah Palin. There have been others who were unfair. Someone made a prono with a look-alike. But that is far from mainstream media. I never heard a mainstream news source question who was the father of the baby. She’s been scrutinized because she is running for a very high office, and she should be scrutinized. We can’t afford to have another President who doesn’t have the capacity to make up his/her own mind, which puts our nation’s fate in the hands of manipulative policy wonks, war profiteers, and oil men.
A PW County Resident, when you said,
did you mean that federal retirees can’t collect SS at all? My father retired from the FBI, then went to work for an airline for four years so that that time – plus his military time – enabled him to collect SS. He was in that group that was heavily penalized but he did collect it.
Speaking of Palin… has anyone seen this (Palin hung with a noose): http://cbs2.com/local/Sarah.Palin.mannequin.2.849299.html
I don’t see how this is allowed, can you imagine if it was an Obama mannequin.
Censored, at one time there was “grandfathering” (no pun intended), for people who were either retired by 1984 (I think this was the year) or would be retired within a certain amount of time. The offset now is that your SS is reduced by the amount of your Federal retirement so for most people that means you get nothing. My dad also got SS after Federal retirement (he actually didn’t know why he was getting all these checks so he put them in his desk until we told him he could cash them :)). But now, the offset means you don’t get anything but you are not exempt from SS taxes. I think that the offset also affects spousal benefits but I am not certain of that. I know my mother-in-law collected only Federal spouse benefit and not SS, even though she would have qualified for SS on her own.
A PW County Resident, wow! That hardly seems fair.
The Sarah Palin in the noose is totally inappropriate. It probably isn’t illegal but whoever did it has the social skills of an ass. Hopefully the cops will keep an eye on this misfit.
Hello, you are too hilarious. Did you know about the neo-nazi skinhead plot to assassinate Obama and murder and mutilate more than a hundred African Americans when you posted your complaint about the noose?
Sure, the noose is to be condemned, and all who are asked about it are doing so.
But why do some people only seize upon such things when it fits their very, very, very narrow agenda?
Don’t you realize how obvious you are? Who do you think you are fooling?
ShellyB, what the F are you talking about ShellyB!!?!?!?!??!?! So what are you accusing me of!? Your way out of line on this one and you owe me an apology.
I don’t know if you just don’t read very well or you just like making blind accusations of people but this is what I wrote at 16:43 in response to Pinko posting the story:
hello – I saw that as well, absolutely terrible and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It’s a good thing that this plot was found out and busted in time. I don’t care how much you dislike anyone, killing isn’t the answer.
What is your deal?
Does anyone know what the hell Ms. Shelly is implying here?
Sorry ShellyB, your probably too busy race baiting someone else to have read this in the “Folks Just Need to Behave!” thread (how ironic)…
hello, 27. October 2008, 9:54
Also, how do you feel about the vile Halloween decorations being put up? One has Palin being hung by a noose: http://cbs2.com/local/Sarah.Palin.mannequin.2.849299.html
Another has McCain dressed in a KKK outfit chasing Obama: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=196903
that is 9:54 AM by the way… dont’ know if you knew that or not, just thought I would let you know. 😛