Sarah Palin has ten times the net worth of Joe Biden, yet she was trying to lecture him about the middle class. She’s a phony. She’s not middle class. She’s a millionaire.
Because she’s making a blatant (to the point of being obnoxious) attempt to pass herself off as One Of The Regular Folks.
Next question?
Because Palin is lying about it and trying to say she’s part of the middle class:
This is probably right - I know that if one counts the life insurance policies and the (inflated) value of our property, hubby and I would be worth close to 3/4 of a million. Being worth 1.2 million is not the same as being a millionaire.
Um…yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what it means, and life insurance policies don’t count.
Upper middle class is Joe Six-Pack who’s been promoted to shift supervisor. I find it ludicrous to state that a family who makes over $125,000 a year is middle class.
They actually made $166,080 last year and $126,869 the year before. Not middle class.
Did you not read the article? Having lived in Alaska they sound like many of my neighbors and certainly a little worse off than some homesteader friends and coworkers. Show me, where in that article or any other do they demonstrate pretentiousness or exemplify a chronic disconnect with what middle class people experience. Where?
Would you not expect someone who’s risen in politics to have done some things well and to have employed prudent judgement along the way? They may have started off average but now, nearing their 50s they’re slightly above. That means they don’t remember what?
Your arguement blows the shoes right off Obama and, to an only slightly lesser degree, Biden’s legitimacy in understanding either. Is that what you’re suggesting as well?
Someone please tell me how Palin is now incapable of understanding what your average American experiences in the day to day above and beyond what any other Vice and Presidential candidate is capably cognizant of.
She demonstrated that last night, lieu. She supports taxing employer-paid health plans as income!
Her contention is that she’s MORE capable of it than the guys on the other ticket, one of whom grew up on food stamps and even now is no more wealthy than she is (and she will become exponentially more wealthy after the election off of all this), and a guy who actually IS still middle class.
What makes you think this is a bad thing? Treating non-cash benefits as income makes the tax system more fair. The income tax rates would have to be updated to make up for the on-paper increase in income, but the government should already be doing that to avoid bracket creep from inflation.
I fully realize, choosing to steadfastly remain in the undecided camp for now, exactly what Barak and Joe’s background is. To me, having made up your mind already is to ignore many of the facts and arguements still to be made and hell no, I won’t do that. But I also won’t listen to crap in the guise of reason which is why, in equal treatment of Palin, I consider this not to be a like condemnation of Barak. Much of the drivel above in the absence of a specified candidate would never pass muster as a legitimate arguement against. When those ‘arguements’ name a candidate, it doesn’t mean they’ve identified an issue, just that they’ve taken a side since the wealth and stated empathy exist equally for both.
Wikipedia gives the median household income in the USA as a little over $48,000.
If you are a millionaire and think you are middle class, you might want to take a serious look at how some people are living elsewhere in our country.
Pine Ridge Reservation, the home of Wounded Knee, will break your heart. The median income threre is less than $3500. Unemployment is 84%. Thirty-three percent of the houses have no electricity. More than that have no basic water or sewage system. Two and three room houses hold 16 or 17 people on average. Most of those houses need to be burned because of black mold. Many, many have no heat in the winter and the temperatures can get down far below zero.
No, the Palins are not middle class.
Whether they are currently in middle class or upper middle class or, as some have claimed, “millionaires”, the Palins are clearly not among the elite - regardless of their current net value, they didn’t come from money and don’t have the elitist lifestyle or background. If they’ve made wise earning, spending, investment and savings choices along the way, then good for them. It by no means implies that they can’t relate to an average family struggling to make those same decisions.
However, being able to relate to a situation, does not at all mean that she is qualified (or not qualified) to do the job as Vice President. There are so many other factors that are of far greater significance, why focus so heavily on this one point?
I’d like to be able to speak to a physician that can understand and, to a degree, relate to my symptoms and can speak to me in a manner that is neither condescending or hyper-technical. But you know what? Mostly I want a physician who has a decent medical degree, has remained current in his studies and has the experience to diagnose and treat me effectively. If he or she walks into the room yukking it up, winking at me and tellin’ me, “You betcha, I’m gonna fix ya up,” I may feel quite comfortable, but he or she damn well better have the medical background and experience to follow through on that statement.
Sarah Palin does not have enough of either, politically speaking, regardless of her current income.
What is the “elitist lifestyle”?
McCain does not propose to do so. She has to defend the plan as it is, not the plan as you might wish it to be.
Unless you’re one of the ones with the attention span of a ferret on crack and Jolt cola. In that case, fake folksiness works as a substitute for addressing the issues.
Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it does not involve scarfing down moose stew.
You guys are harsh. We have a household income bigger than that, and until three weeks ago, a similar net worth to the Palins. (The stock market will come back up before I retire, right? I’m only 42!) I’ll assure you, Brainiac4 is not wisking me off to New York for Fashion Week or bringing me Harry Winston jewelry.
The Palin’s are not wealthy. They have a pretty good income and a lot of land. Alaska is an expensive state to live in (although they do give you money just for living there) and there is a LOT of land. A few assets - like the fishing rights and the plane - that are valuable, but have been passed down through the family.
If they wanted to fund five children through private college, they’d have almost nothing left.
Cindy McCain is wealthy. She is really the only truly wealthy person involved here - and by extension her husband is wealthy - though if she has a good pre-nup behind her and divorced him tomorrow, I think he might still be wealthy on his own. Biden and Palin are definately middle class - and Obama is somewhere near the edge - with a lot of time to reap the financial rewards of being a former president.
Palin is trying to portray herself as being the "middle class’ candidate when the facts are that the only one of the four candiadtes who is better off than she is John McCain. The Obamas both grew up lower middle class and only recently became technical “millionaires” from Barack’s book sales. Biden grew up middle class and has NEVER been a millionaire.
What’s insulting about Palin’s schtick is that she’s trying to claim that she’s somehow more middle class than her opponents. That’s bullshit. Joe Biden has a tenth of her net worth. Obama has about the same as hers.
You are not middle class either…sorry. Here’s an article from FactCheck.org that discusses the definition of middle class. Although there isn’t any official definition, the Palins and your family, by any definition, do not fall into the middle class. For Palin to imagine that she’s in the middle class, to me, indicates that she has blinders on about what people who are truly middle class are living. By defining herself as middle class, she seems to be indicating that most people in the U.S. are living in her circumstances. They are not. Not even close. When she says her ticket is going to address middle class problems, she’s obviously thinking of those people who have an income of mid-100k. If that’s her definition, I now want to know what her ticket is going to do to address the problems of the lower class, which according to her definition is what I and the majority of the American people would fall into.
ETA: I’ll edit to say that your family and the Palins do come under one person’s definition of middle class - Mitt Romney’s.