sensiblejoe's Blog

From the 20 October 2008 "Wall Street Journal"...

RADIO HOSTS HELP JOE THE PLUMBER PAY HIS TAXES

Susan Davis reports on the presidential race.

Shortly after John McCain made Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher a household name following last Wednesday’s presidential debate, reporters and bloggers soon discovered a couple problems with Joe’s everyman story.

First, they discovered his name wasn’t exactly Joe—full name Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Then, it turned out that while he practices the trade, Joe wasn’t a licensed plumber. And finally, while Joe was bemoaning Barack Obama’s proposed tax increases, the Ohioan was also delinquent on paying his own—with a $1,200 tax lien against him by the state of Ohio.

In response to the media coverage, two local Portland, Oregon radio hosts launched www.savejoetheplumber.net to help Wurzelbacher pay his back taxes.

Portland’s 1190 KEX’s afternoon News Radio hosts Mark Mason and Dave Anderson succeeded in that goal today, not only raising the $1,200 Joe the Plumber needs to pay his taxes, but also the $500 he’ll need to get his plumber’s license.

In an e-mail to Washington Wire, Mason writes that the hosts spoke to Wurzelbacher and his brother on air tonight to break the news. “We just spoke with Joe (and his brother) LIVE right now…felt that the media was unfair in that they never seemed to ask HIM about his background,” Mason wrote this evening, “He was very grateful for the $$.”

The interview will be available on the Web site.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/20/radio-hosts-he
lp-joe-the-plumber-pay-his-taxes

Comment:

Supposedly, two of the basic principles of conservatism are personal responsibility and civic duty. "Joe the Plumber" failed to live up to both by (1) not paying his taxes, and (2) letting other people pay them for him. His hypocrisy means that "Joe the Plumber" is no conservative: rather than stand on his own two feet and pay his own way, he's "very grateful" to have other people "redistribute their wealth" to him to pay his way. Sounds very "socialist" indeed!

A man who boasts of being in the offing to buy a supposedly $250,000 business (that actually only grossed $100,000 last year, and thus would get a tax break under Obama's plan with 95% of all working Americans) ought not to accept charity that others with far, far less could use. Man up, Joe the Plumber!