The Plumber Gets the Bill

By: Mr. Curmudgeon
mrcurmudgeon@inthepublicsquare.com

Joe Wurzelbacher – a.k.a. Joe the Plumber – asked the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a straight question, “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”

Obama assured the Toledo, Ohio, blue-collar worker that as long as he moderated the success of his business (keeping its revenues under $250,000) Joe would only have to pay the high taxes he now endures. If he should get ambitious and generate income beyond the Obama threshold, yeah, the former community organizer said he would raise Joe’s taxes “from 36 to 39 percent, which it was under Bill Clinton.”

The press is furious with Plumber Joe’s effrontery. After all, gotcha questions, even simple legitimate ones, are their exclusive domain.

“…Under the glare of the ensuing media spotlight,” said the New York Times, “reporters found that Mr. Wurzelbacher did not actually have a plumbing license, and that he actually owed some back taxes.”

Poor Joe has been relegated to a non-person because he lacks the proper bureaucratic government sanctions to legitimatize his labor and is behind on giving the nanny-state its pound of flesh.

Here’s another interesting fact: according to the Senate Finance Committee, 450,000 current and former federal employees (the ones Obama believes sanction our existence) owe $3 billion in back taxes.

At a recent campaign rally in Miami, Florida, McCain said, “Last weekend, Senator Obama showed up in Joe's driveway to ask for his vote, and Joe asked Senator Obama a tough question. I'm glad he did; I think Senator Obama could use a few more tough questions.”

McCain is right. And it is McCain’s job to ask those tough questions. He had many opportunities to do just that during three televised presidential debates; and each time McCain dropped the ball.

Yes, Joe may be unlicensed and owe back taxes, but he at least asked a direct question neither the media, the Republican establishment, nor the Republican contender for President had the mental wherewithal to ask. And for his trouble Joe is the center of media scorn. But at least he got his answer – a President Obama guarantee to flush even more of Joe the Plumber's hard-earned income down the drain pipe of ever wasteful federal spending.

--Mr. Curmudgeon