Hmmm. I was going to point out that buying an ice cream cone is stimulative of the economy, but you might have a point in that the disruption of people’s comings and goings probably outweighs the benefit of an extra ice cream cone sale.
But wait! What if we add some wild card to provide a multiplier effect to that ice cream come? The solution leaps out at us, plain as day! Whenever Oprah Winfrey publicly eats a treat, the sales of that treat go through the roof. So, if Da Veep wants to stop for ice cream, he just calls Oprah to join him. She does, they nosh, and before you know it, sales skyrocket so much that a little traffic jam in Grover’s Corner’s hardly matters!
Would the VP have to pay for the ice cream? I’d imagine - if it were my ice cream shop - that he’d get the ice cream for free, irrespective of which party he was a part of.
Not sure I see the outrage here. We have the debate on the SDMB on a regular basis as to where the dividing line between middle class and “rich” is. $200K is certainly upper middle class but it’s hardly “Have the chauffeur fire up the Bentley, I want to have dinner in the Hamptons”-type money.
Sure, in Arkansas, $200K/year is a crap-load of money, but that’s because Arkansas is ranked something like 47th overall in terms of mean income. So I guess the from a campaign standpoint, the comment might sound kind of tone deaf, but that’s not because he’s wrong; it’s because Arkansas is an economic backwater.
There is stupidity on the liberal side, to be sure. The trouble is, you’re so full of incorrect information that what you are outraged about things that aren’t real. You see liberal stupidity everywhere, because the news you take in packages normal things as crazy and, at times, simply makes stuff up.
It doesn’t help that you’re from Texas, where your delusions are wide-spread and deep.
We all got on Mitt Romney for claiming that $250,000 was a “middle class” income (though Romney also claimed $100,000 was not).
Having said that, I agree with Pryor. $200,000 is a reasonable annual salary for a successful physician, accountant or lawyer - the classic “middle class” occupations.
Dude, if it wasn’t for some of the self-professed liberals here actually supplying content on your behalf, due to your clear incompetence in doing so, this thing probably wouldn’t have made it off the third page. But do continue your unwarranted sneering if that makes you feel better about yourself.
I don’t think these are the classic middle class occupations – I would categorize the following as classic “middle class”: plumber, auto worker, teacher, police officer, construction foreman, retail/restaurant manager, etc. Plenty of physicians, accountants, and lawyers are well beyond middle class, but you couldn’t say that about the occupations I mentioned.
Historically, the defining factors of the middle class were tertiary education and professional qualifications. Hence, the qualifier “classic”. You are describing mostly working-class occupations.
Well off people vote. To a politician, the condition of the country is what it is to voters, not to the mass of people.
The other factor is that poor people vote Democrat. People making over $100,000 though are not as fixed in their political leanings. Democrats need to peel off rich voters to win elections, and promising not to raise taxes except on the top 1% helps with that.
Well, this one takes the cake. Every time I think Obama can’t do anything more stupid than he already has, he comes through for us. Ebola is a problem, and a potentially severe one. So who does he pick to head up the crisis? A political hack instead of a doctor.
An unnecessary solution to an exaggerated problem. If we’re gonna have an Ebola Czar (and we don’t need one), it ought to be an administrator type, not a doctor. We already have doctors at the CDC, NIH, and elsewhere. The Ebola Czar is mostly about PR, and thus a political-type is appropriate.