Main Street

Congressman Fleming Lives On A Planet Where $400K Isn’t A Lot

Can we all agree on something? $400,000 is a lot of money. That’s more than most folks make in a year, or even four years. It’s about eight times the average annual income for an American household in 2010.

But to Congressman John Fleming (R-LA), $400,000 is a pittance. Just watch:

From ThinkProgress:

Fleming is himself a businesses owner, so Jansing asked, “If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?” Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

Jansing pointed out that whining about tax increases while making $400,000 annually is “not exactly a sympathetic position.” Fleming could only respond by saying that “class warfare has never created a job” and that his success is a “virtue.” But he noticeably never answered Jansing’s question about whether he would actually be forced to lay off workers if his taxes went up.

Fleming’s apparent disgust at the mention of $400,000 is disposable income is laughable in today’s economy, but he’s not alone in this view. Rep. Danny Rehberg (R-MT) told a town hall that he is “struggling, just like everyone else,” despite a net worth of $10.9 million. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), referring to his $174,000 congressional salary, told an unemployed constituent “I’m not living high off the hog.”

Take in that context the comments of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who rejected concerns of U.S. poverty by claiming that the “poor are getting richer even faster” than the already rich.

With these statements, Fleming and his colleagues demonstrate how different they are from most of the country. 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010, and the average household income is $50,000, which is 2.3 percent lower than it was the year before. The idea that having hundreds of thousands of dollars – after expenses – is somehow problematic, and the idea that somehow struggling families are getting richer in an environment of stagnant wages…we’re not buying it.

The country isn’t buying it either. Polling shows a clear majority in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy as an acceptable way to address the deficit; 74 percent in last week’s New York Times/CBS Poll, 69 percent in last week’s AP poll, and 66 in an August Gallup poll.

What the President proposed yesterday isn’t class warfare, and it isn’t extreme. It’s where the country is at. And until Rep. Fleming spends some of that $400,000 “leftover” cash to field his own poll that says otherwise, he and his GOP buddies might want to come along with the rest of us.