Jana, you can work as a plumber without a license in Illinois, you just have to have the local gov’t authorities inspect the work, for a fee of course. In Missouri, where we have our farm, no inspections, no nothing, you can do the work yourself if you want, in all trades.

Joe is a plumber, can work in IL and MO and he is close to getting his license, btw.

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@MataHarley:

The gnats, they are a swarmin’ today.

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Jana, well I’m glad to at least see one of you Obama supporters that has a distaste for privacy invasion because of political beliefs.

Yet in the same breath, you misrepresent and, yes, demean him in order to minimize the point he brought up… that Obama’s tax plan is majorly flawed in scope and numbers.

The first and most important issue about Joe the Plumber is not his particular circumstance, but *any* Joe the Plumber’s circumstance.

Now, as to your lies that he “misrepresented” himself:

I will also say that he did misrepresent himself in the sense that yeah, he is a plumber, but he’s still not a licensed plumber, and in fact wouldn’t be allowed to work outside the state of Ohio without a license. Apparently the business he works for dosen’t make anywhere near $250,000 a year, so Obama’s tax cuts WOULD in fact benefit him.

First, employees in that state do not have to carry the license. Their employers do. Another expense for Joe as a self-employed small business owner. So yes, he is a plumber. And he could be a plumber in any state he wants by merely obtaining a license. So what the heck is your beef?

Second, he wants to buy a business with the ambition of growing it. That’s the reason most people operate their own business. They want the opportunity to make more cash and better their own lives. Surely this concept doesn’t escape you.

But of course, I’m not so sure about $250K… er, $200K… no make that $150K via Biden… being a benefit. You see, you – like too many of your fellow faithful – think that Obama’s “tax plan” is encapsulized and comprised only of “95% of Americans will get tax cuts”. That, in itself, has some questions depending on how your gross taxable income is figured. And, of course, you’ll want to make sure you don’t get “too” successful. Nothing like a threshold on ambition to perk a body up….

But hasn’t it ever occurred to any of you how Obama intends to fund that $4.3 trillion he needs (a low estimate from Tax Policy Center, BTW) for his programs? You talk about your income taxes as if that’s the only expense that will come your way with an Obama welfare/socialist policy.

Let me give you a hint. All that Obama wants to do cannot be financing by increasing taxes on the 3.3% of Americans that you support so wholeheartedly right now. Biden, Barney Frank and Obama himself have been subtly warning you … without saying it outright and losing the election… that taxes are going to have to go up “for the good” of the country. There’s taxpayer funded preschool and college, taxpayer funded work training programs, taxpayer funded health care, taxpayer funded energy… the list goes on and on. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about Obama’s “citizen army”, and the sundry new government departments he wants to create.

Just where do you think this money is going to come from? His’ proposed cutting of other programs doesn’t come close to making a dent in this spending. And oh, BTW, his proposed method of saving on medical by importing drugs from other countries is just another “outsourcing” that will cause job loss and relocation of American pharmaceutical facilities.

But duh…. sure sounds good as a campaign talking point, eh?

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@stix1972

Do you REALLY believe that a man who graduated from Harvard and was a law professor couldn’t write his own damn book? I mean, seriously—it kills me how people will believe anything about Obama to justify why he shouldn’t be President. I mean, c’mon, Obama wasn’t even a politician when he wrote the book, and it didn’t sell that well when first published, so exactly how the hell was Ayers supposed to benefit by ghostwriting a biography for a then-virtually unknown law school graduate? It boggles the mind.

@MataHarley

About Joe the Plumber–first of all, I will say that hell yeah, it’s just damn wrong to pull up ANYBODY’S personal info like that and just throw it out on the web for everybody to see. There was NO reason his personal info had to be revealed like that, whatsoever. I will also say that he did misrepresent himself in the sense that yeah, he is a plumber, but he’s still not a licensed plumber, and in fact wouldn’t be allowed to work outside the state of Ohio without a license. Apparently the business he works for dosen’t make anywhere near $250,000 a year, so Obama’s tax cuts WOULD in fact benefit him. I mean, damn Obama took the time out to break it down to him exactly how his tax plan would work, and all he can say is that he STILL dosen’t get it? It’s not THAT hard to understand. Bottom line—he’s just a mouthpiece for McCain,plain and simple, who wanted to bait Obama and catch him off guard, but Obama was on his game.

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Update:

Official stories aren’t matching what happened in Joe’s child support invasion of privacy.

The Ohio caseworker that looked into Joe the Plumber’s child support records was told to do it because Wurzelbacher contacted the agency about his case.

A week later her boss directed, “literally demanded,” that she write an e-mail stating the computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

She also said that she was unfamiliar with the practice of checking the newly famous-never did it before and knew of no one in the office that did.

The whole curiouser and curiouser changing story can be read here:

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/10/31/joe.html?sid=101

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@Dave Noble: Maybe he needs to do something else now that he got reamed by the MSM

And maybe he will do the same thing that Obama did, use a ghost writer. Many experts think that Ayers wrote Obama “Dreams of my father” there are many passages that are very similar to Ayers books and many phrases that people that are not sailors (Ayers joined the Merchant Marines) use and the general public dos not use. Even if Ayers was not the writer, Obama did not write it.

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“It’s unfortunate that you doubt Joe Wurzelbacher’s aspirations. I suppose you would also claim that the typical small business, the back bone of this country, never started as a dream of a blue collar worker.”

No, Missy, if you read my posts you’d know that I have a brother and son, who were both blue collar workers, who started their own businesses. Your father-in-law should be lauded for his courage and hard work. But I’ve got news for you, Joe the Plumber isn’t your father-in-law.

Mr. W just hired Eddie Money’s publicist and is reportedly working on a book. Looks like those plans to buy his boss’ business got put on the back burner. But if that book (anybody want to bet on whether he uses a ghostwriter?), and the likely conservative speaking engagements, come through, he may just be paying those higher taxes. You guys have a real war hero in John McCain (that’s why I always wondered how the Spoiled Scion got the nod in 2000). Yet you seem so desperate to find another –Hockey Mom, Plumber –you’ll take what comes along. And if there is a way to spin them into a martyr, all the better.

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This story illustrates the unprecedented transparency that technology is bringing to society. Just as (allegedly) Plumber Joe’s privacy was breached, access logs in Ohio’s information systems show when his data was accessed and from which particular government offices. That’s powerful stuff. Data logs can probably enable a deeper investigation into precisely who made the access and whether it was legal. If people acted illegally, the digital evidence can lead to their punishment. Such transparency represents a big trend in society http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/12/people-in-authority-sometimes-abuse.html –Ben

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@Dave Noble:

I didn’t borrow anything from the “conservative playbook,” call them as I see them and it is you that is disrespecting the intelligence of the American people.

It’s unfortunate that you doubt Joe Wurzelbacher’s aspirations. I suppose you would also claim that the typical small business, the back bone of this country, never started as a dream of a blue collar worker. I’ve got news for you. My father-in-law started a metal fabricating business back in the 50′s, ran it out of an old garage in the beginning, it is still in the family, located in one of the better industrial parks in our community, still going strong.

He went from a young farmer with five kids in Iowa to a factory worker in Illinois so he could improve the lives of his family. Starting as a metal fabricator working for another company, he knew a client was often irritated that the work they contracted for was delayed or not done to the standards they wanted. He approached this company, told them of his dream to own his own business, they bank-rolled him, he paid them back in a year and quality parts were delivered on time. That company was Woodward Governor, later he got Sundstrand’s and Barber-Colman, now they do work for companies all over the world we don’t even advertise, they are never out of work, good economy, bad economy, they are work 55 hours a week. The economy slowed them down once, at the end of the Clinton years, they worked 50 hours.

Now, you do fault Mr. Wurzelbacher. You called him a fraud and a poseur. You scorned him all because he dared to ask a common sense question, a hypothetical question, how dare he.

BTW, strange that we know more about Joe the Plumber than Obama the Presidential candidate and, speaking of poseurs:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html

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[...] the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Helen Jones-Kelley (a Obama supporter who gave the maximum allowed to his campaign), has changed her story on the record check of Joe the [...]

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