“In media interviews, Joe acknowledged that he earns nowhere near that amount at the moment. But he said he expects to cross the $250,000 threshold someday.”
So Joe the Plumber admits he would get a tax break under Obama’s plan, but he doesn’t want a tax break because someday he will be rich. How, exactly, does this make any sense? Are we to believe that Joe the Plumber is more concerned with a theoretical future than he is with his current and very real situation?
Here’s the thing about Joe the Plumber: No half-rational person thinks like this guy. Nobody who is struggling to make a living worries about the added taxes they would have to pay if they became rich. Everybody is concerned about getting to the rich part first — then they can worry about the extra taxes. Getting a tax cut today goes some way to getting to the rich part. That Joe the Plumber doesn’t see this makes him truly weird.
Joe the Plumber is not a hard-working “everyman,” he is either an ideologue who can’t stand a Democrat who wants to give him a tax break or he is a pie-in-the-sky dreamer who’s more concerned about the high taxes he’s paying in his daydreams than in the challenges he needs to overcome if he ever wants to make his dreams reality.
If Joe the Plumber is what has happened to the American Dream, then America is in bigger trouble than I thought.
