The Next 18 Days for Joe the Plumber

Earlier this week Joe Six Pack from Main Street transformed from a mythical symbol into Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Ohio. The only “surprise” is that Joe didn’t have a man-crush on Obama like the media does, and certainly wasn’t chanting change and hope.

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more isn’t it?”

Those twelve words, followed by Obama’s response of spreading the wealth may have a greater impact on this election as the Ponytail Guy did in 1992 (GHW Bush vs. BJ Clinton) when he asked the presidential candidates to “treat us as your children” and to promise to “meet our needs.”

Rather than try to argue ideology and attempt to explain why Obama feels that taxing certain economic levels is necessary, the media and the Obama Campaign is going to go after this guy. Until Election Day (and who knows how much longer) Joe is going to be called a Republic plant. They’re going to question his plumbing licenses and tax returns. If they can, they’ll bring out unhappy ex-girlfriends from high school or anything else they can do to turn Joe the Plumber into some monster who us peasants on Main Street can’t relate to.

But behind all of this vilifying, the truth is still there. Obama wants to take money from those who earned it, and give it to those who haven’t. He’s using this fictitious number of $250,000 as a point of envy, so those of us making 30k, 50k, or 100k look up to those mean rich people making 250,000 and say “yeah, they should pay up more”.

Let’s not fall for it. No one is going to prosper by punishing those with wealth. Economies grow when jobs are created, not when money is transferred from one party to another without the exchange goods or services in return. Economies grow when the government gets out of the way of people trying to succeed.

Thanks Joe, I hope I’m wrong about their plans for you.