I’m sure everyone has heard by now about ‘Joe The Plumber’ from Holland, Ohio.
And sadly, the discussion hasn’t focused on the point Joe was trying to make—that the tax policies proposed by presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama will punish those who work long hours to improve their family’s position in life.
In the interviews Joe has given since his memorable chat with Sen. Obama, very few focused on the question Joe was asking: Why should people who put in extraordinary effort to move up the economic scale be penalized by having a disproportionate amount of the money they earn taken from them and given to people who don’t pay taxes at all? In other words, Joe was asking if he bought the business he works for (it’s a two-man operation), and if he filed taxes under his personal income, as most unincorporated small businesses do, would he be taxed more (his gross income would then exceed $250,000)?
Obama unabashedly said yes—a resounding yes. Obama insisted that his administration should be legally permitted to dig into Joe’s bank account (and those like him) and provide his hard-earned wealth to those who did not get their hands or clothes dirty with grime and sweat. They should be forced to “spread the wealth,” as Obama put it. This money would go to that large percentage of the United States population who actually pay zero taxes and didn’t contribute to Joe’s success. Joe should subsidize those who haven’t risen to the challenge—to those who have not tried to ’seize the day’ like Joe is striving to do.
Well, that isn’t an enviable position for any presidential candidate to be in: to take from the pockets of a hardworking plumber and spread his wealth to those who haven’t earned it, in the form of a check that Obama refers to as a ‘tax cut’. (As an aside, I’m not sure this can legitimately be considered accurate, since you have to actually pay taxes to receive a tax cut—but hey, I didn’t go to Harvard. I guess Harvard lawyers are allowed to equivocate the common-sense meanings of words and not be questioned by the news media.)
Obviously, either Obama wasn’t listening to Joe’s question or was deliberately distorting the facts and the question. So what did Senators Obama and Biden do? Did they clarify their tax plan to explain it wouldn’t be penalizing people’s success? No, they couldn’t do that because it wouldn’t be accurate. What the Democrat presidential ticket did was go on the offensive—not in criticizing the policies of John McCain, but in attacking Joe The Plumber. Joe Everyman. They began questioning him as if he were making $250,000 and belittled his hard work by asking, “How many plumbers do you know making a quarter million dollars a year?” Ridiculing and dismissing him. Investigating him by saying he’s not a plumber because he doesn’t have a union license. Huh? And then you have the media reporting everything from Joe’s lack of a union license, misstatements about his income (deliberately), and claims that he owes back taxes. What does Joe’s background have to do with his tax plan?
So what do I take away from this interchange? Two things. The first is that dissent is not permitted in the Democrat party. Questioning the policies and discrediting them is not to be tolerated. If you do point out that the king has no clothes, then you’ll be dutifully pummeled by the willing accomplices in the lunatic left (Hi, MoveOn.org!) and the uncritical ‘mainstream news media.’ Not only pummeled but investigated and denigrated. All your dirty laundry aired in a not-so-veiled threat to others that they should not question the righteousness of Obama and Co. The second? I’ll be voting for McCain-Palin.
