She sounds like she might be *slightly* out of touch as to what "make ends meet" actually means. It doesn't involve "paying for piano lessons" or soccer or any of the other things she mentions (or perhaps not being able to afford a brand new iPad when it comes out???)... These are all extra expenses someone *chooses* to incur and they are most definitely *not* necessary. Sometimes Northern VA astounds me.

Work hard in this area to make ends meet on $250,000! and it's not enough? This woman is insensitive. She is the type who gives us Republicans a bad name. Most of us live within our means, don't buy the expensive extras, don't aspire to keep up with the Joneses. We are satisfied with what we have, and sometimes we have enough to share. We do work in our communities. What in the world is she thinking? She needs a reality check. Is she a "1%er". Get a grip, woman.

If 250K is not rich, I am at poverty level. What a ding bat

Jeez.... That is a really harsh comment (above). In this area, 250K does not get you the same lifestyle it would get you elsewhere. I think that is the point the article is trying to make. On 250K elsewhere, you could live in a big house with land, afford to send your kids to private school, go out to eat, participate in lots of activities. That same money just does not go as far here, on 250K here you have to budget and make good financial choices. A lifestyle on 250K here is middle class, not upper. Especially supporting 3 other living beings who need to eat, go to school, wear clothes, etc. It's not about keeping up with the Jones' it's about the type of lifestyle here vs. elsewhere. Unfortunately, many common jobs in this area with those types of salaries don't exist elsewhere where the cost of living is less.

You are the dingbats. Why do you think people move to NOVA - to slog on our highways and pay high prices for housing? NO - we move here because of the things we can offer our kids - piano lessons and camp aren't a necessity, but they are a pleasure that people want to give to their family. And I shouldn't have to pay for someone else's family to get the many free services this county and federal government provide at the expense of denying my family cultural improvements like piano lessons. This isn't Somalia where families are dying of starvation. This isn't North Korea where families live in shacks. This is NOVA - and people move here and live here knowing that the cost of living is high. And that is a fact. It costs a hell of a lot to buy a house, run your car, buy groceries - and for those of us working our butts off to pay hefty taxes, yes - to pay for the pleasures like camp etc... that make our families happy. So get a grip posters.

This is definitely a high cost of living region. Without a doubt! And, sure, $250K is not "rich" by many standards but it is most certainly enough for a family to live on and I know many families who live on MUCH less than that and are doing just fine.

I get what she is saying, but she is quite a bit out of touch.

There are middle class people living all throughout this region who raise families on much less than $250K a year because they live within their means. These families are not purchasing a million dollar home in McLean. They rent a townhouse in Centreville. And, they are not driving a 5-series BMW but rather a Honda Civic. They don't send their children to expensive piano lessons. They take them up to the neighborhood gym for youth basketball programs.

These are normal, everyday - "middle class" people who I feel she sounds somewhat out of touch with.

Very compassionate, Catherine. Nobody is suffering to make ends meet at 250k in the US, I don't care where you live.

Comstock is way out of touch. First of all, the only high-cost aspect of living in NOVA is housing. After that, daily recurring costs are about the same as everywhere: gas, groceries, utilities. Now those equestrian riding lessons, private schools (what a waste when we have some of the best public schools in the country), etc., will set you back a little. But if you can't make ends meet on $250K you might want to consider getting some financial counseling - from a 6th grader. Comstock travels in well-heeled circles and has no idea what she is talking about. She only represents have of her district. The other half she completely ignores.

If $250k is not rich, why then support increased tax burden on those that make less while not doing so for the rich? Sorry, but if you're not in the top income brackets, eliminating capital gains (as is proposed by the GOP) isn't helping the $250k or under. 1-2% increase in tax rate for $250k and greater has a lot less an impact than upon a $50k teacher's salary (median salary U.S.). If a 1-2% increase in the tax rate negatively impacts HH making over $250k, well, then, you've got other problems.

Ms. Comstock does not speak for many of her constituents. She is certainly either out of touch or bearing false witness.

That is one crazy lady.

may i interject a simple thought? there are many, many levels of housing prices in nova. the one LIVING/MOVING here is responsible for making a wise choice. THAT choice will determine whether a $250K income is enough.

I live in Calfornia, about fifty miles north of San Francisco. Cost of living is high here too, but I"ll join most of the posters here by saying this chick is waaaay outta touch. I keep me and my two kids happy on about $35K a year and while we're slightly below the poverty line, we live better than some others in our area. Ms Comstock needs to wake up and get some financial education. Romney comes from the same ilk and I am afraid.

Comstock is a typical, out of touch, Republican wacko. She is as out of touch with ordinary Americans as is the President. neither ofthem care much for the working classes and the middle class of our society. Both are too busy congratulating themselves and their friends for being part of the "meritocracy. A pox on both their houses.

I'm an embarrassed Republican...we are a dual income family living in McLean (no, not a million dollar home...but rather an older remodeled home bought as a foreclosure in the late nineties). I consider myself to be middle class McLean....we don't own any luxury cars and we very rarely go out to eat and when we do it's not to fancy restaurants. We don't own any iPads, etc. We live on a budget. Do we make a combined $250K - NO! Can we still offer a few luxuries to our kids? Yes, of course they do enjoy sports and other recreational activities and we do have vacations, but all because we BUDGET our money. We buy clothes at Target but with birthday money/chore money they get to shop at Abercombie & Fitch, etc. We frequent consignment/yard sales and I discovered Freecycle where my daughter actually got a bag full of books for free, which included a whole set of American Girl doll books! When she wanted an American Girl doll I went to eBay and got her TWO for the price of one! Gently used, but as I told her, do you want 1 or 2? Do you think a doll made in China is worth $100? Also, I would venture to say that if you are speaking of NOVA as a whole, then $250K would be upper-class and NOT middle-class.

Well, well, well... aren't we a sanctimonious bunch? The fact is that 75% of people who make over $250k a year are small businesses who pay their taxes as individuals. These are the people creating 2/3 of the new jobs that will keep NOVA moving forward and provide a future for our kids. Both Obama and Gerry Connolly agree that we shouldn't raise taxes on anyone in a fragile economy. Delegate Comstock knows the NOVA machine is driven by the success of our local businesses. These small business people are the ones saying that 250K isn't rich and they are correct. Because when you take out ALL the taxes, your mortgage payment, car payment etc... it isn't enough to make ends meet. So everyone should get off their high horses and stop being so judgemental. Who knows what the PATCH editors failed to include in the edited clip that would have put this clip into context.

$250k where I grew up in central Virginia might be "rich". But in Northern Virginia it is nothing of the sort. There was a recent movement by Democrats to create subsidized housing close to the beltway in Tyson's for those with low incomes. What was their defonition of low income? I'm pretty sure it was $100k. That would be rich in some parts if the country.

I'm in a 60 year old fixer upper house with 2 vehicles that have over 200,000 miles and 4 college educations to pay for one day ... We haven't been able to begin saving for college. If we were closer to $250k we might be able to at least start saving for something. Or if we chose to commute from PW Co or Spotsy, we would be in good shape. But we wanted time with our kids so we cut the commutes and moved towards the beltway. Our choice of residence means we make the same dough but can't do as much wih it. Comstock is spot on.

Just how aloof is this woman? The stupidity is mind-boggling as well.

Fred is right. In my industry all but a few of the companies across the country performing construction services and building America are S corps. They pay taxes at the personal rate. First of all any business making less than $250k is itsy bitsy or it is one step from NOT making payroll. The thought of these businesses getting hit with higher taxes is sick. They either pass it to the consumer, don't make a planned capital investment or they let go of workers. If the energy spent trying to put obstacles in the way of the successful individuals and businesses who drive the economy was spent on trying to incentivize more people to take risks and gain wealth, our economy would be back on track by now.

Those of you making these comments must not have small businesses. If you did, you would know that the majority of us pay our business taxes at the personal
tax rate. So raising taxes on those over $250,000 is going to kill small businesses who have a small profit margin to begin with. And guess what, small businesses create two thirds of new jobs, jobs that could employ your kids. That is why President Obama himself did not support
raising taxes on those over $250k in a fragile economy. He only changed from this position when he adopted
class warfare as a campaign theme. Gerry Connolly in 2010 also did not support increasing taxes on those over $150k because of harm it would do to small
businesses. When you have a small business and are trying to pay your employees, $250,000 is Not very much. That was delegate comstocks point if you listen to what she says and not take things out of context.

This edited clip relates to a larger discussion about competing federal income tax proposals. It's a shame the Patch didn't provide that context, to encourage more substantive discussions. For the record, in fact, a substantial number of Democrats in Congress have expressed ambivalence about increasing tax rates on people who earned more than $250,000

There is broad consensus that the US can't run huge deficits indefinitely. There is substantial consensus to simplify the tax code, which means eliminating or paring back on some disguised spending programs hidden in the tax code and then deciding openly whether to continue spending that money directly. Raising marginal tax rates on a tax base full of holes is not the best approach, even though it makes for good sound bites.

The question is "Are people who earn more than $250,000 a year so much better off than the rest of us that they should be subject to a higher tax rate on the theory that they are 'rich'." The answer is clearly "No."

The answer to the question depends entirely on the lifestyle you wish to lead. If you wish to lead the lifestyle of the top 5% of all Americans, then $250K is just about right for the McLean, Tysons, and Great Falls part of Northern Virginia. If you wish to lead the lifestyle of the 1%, then $250K is not nearly enough. But if you can settle for the lifestyle of the majority of Americans, then you can get by with less than a third that amount. But you you can't live in McLean and Great Falls. (You also can't live in a Manhattan penthouse.)

Barbara Comstock's problem is that she likes the lifestyle of the 1% and for her, no amount of income is ever enough. And unfortunately, many people in McLean and Great Falls share that view.

W. R. Knight

How did this lady EVER get elected??

Rich is relative. To most of the world, $250k would be considered rich. If you live in McLean (or other simarly expensive place) then you likely live a lifestyle equivalent to solidly middle income families of places like Richmond or Roanoke who are making half of that much. But compared to large portions of the world who live in poverty, even the lower middle class Americans would be considered rich. Bottom line, $250k in McLean is not rich and you are not living like a rock star in relation to the rest of America.

I agree with the Democrat Viewpoint above that it depends on where you live. A two-income earner family in Manhattan, or McLean, making $250,000 is not as "rich" as the same family making that amount in Kansas. The 2% of Americans who make over $250,000 are concentrated on the east and west coasts, in the high-cost-of-living urban areas, which are also where the higher income jobs are. I'm sure those families, regardless of their geographical area, don't think they should be lumped in with the "millionaires and billionaires" for the purposes of taxation, which was the context of this discussion. Moreover, raising their already higher tax rates through the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will have little effect on reducing the deficit. And at some point--experts argue over where this point is--increased tax rates (not just from Bush's cuts, but all the others being propose or about to go into effect) will diminish jobs and economic growth and ironically result in reduced tax revenue. (Virginia increased its tax revenue over 5% without increasing taxes.) We need to grow our way out of this deficit. Punishing the "rich," as some seem to want to do, is not the way to go about it. Tax reform is desperately needed in my opinion.

I am 57 yrs. old and my mother is 79; we both grew up in McLean, near the intersection of Old Dominion Dr. and Springhill Road. My father's people have been on Bellview Road since 1862. Daddy passed away in 2000. Those of us remaining on the Bellview Road property don't make any where near $250 thousand/yr. If we did, we would be as well off as Ms. Comstock. An annual income of $250,000 would have kept most of my relatives from selling their property over the last thirty years. If $250,000 per year is too poor for you to live in McLean, I'm truly sorry you didn't try the McLean Commons Apt., I believe they were built when I was going to Langley, 1971?

Getting rid of some holes in our Swiss cheese mess of a tax code is the best way to start reforming the tax code and raising additional federal income tax revenue.

Just raising top marginal income tax rates will cause more people to engage in "tax planning." That means that two households with comparable disposable incomes will pay substantially different amounts of federal income tax. If more people change their behavior to take advantage of tax loopholes, the US might even end up with less tax revenue overall, despite higher marginal tax rates.

Ms. Comstock never misses a chance to show that all of her interests and focus are on finding ways to help the super rich get more at the expense of the middle class. The response to her statements at the convention illustrate she is out of touch with just about everyone except maybe the top .01 %.

Ms. Comstock's statement is understandable to those of us in McLean but also a kind of insidious pandering to our desire to believe we are struggling merely because it's expensive to have everything we want. More of concern, though, is that at the root of her comment is an attitude that no one should have to take responsibility for funding government unless they have cash to burn (who would that be?). But funding government is not optional, and the question is how to share the burden. No one--not Paul Ryan, not Fox News--can balance the budget without tax increases and/or the kind of cuts to the military, social security and medicare that no one has even proposed. If people whose taxable incomes exceed $250K believe they still aren't "rich" enough to be asked to pay more in taxes, who should be? If the answer is "no one," then you just aren't being serious. And this is a serious topic, so it's painful to see this kind of pandering to the I-got-mine mentality of the unserious.

Obama's proposal is designed to nail the successful, while protecting the uber-rich. It taxes the first $10 K over 250 K at the same rate as Mark Warner's, Warren Buffet's and George Soros' last $10 K. But then Democrats always protect those at the very top, while trying to appear "progressive." What hypocrites!
I also find it ironic how Democrats scream "choice, choice, choice" on some issues, but take the opposite position with respect to other people's money. If you want more government revenue, take out your own checkbooks. Respect the choice of others to keep more of the money they earn.

This might be a hard concept for some of you to grasp, but people have obligations to help the rest of society. You can't just do whatever you want.

There are so many people that would love to buy the problems of living on a $250 K income. And there are people starving in this country. No, it's not Somalia but people are starving.