Who is ‘Joe the Plumber’? He is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man looking to buy a plumbing business who came to symbolize the notion Obama’s plan involving ‘spreading the wealth’ in Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate. You won’t find it in his campaign ads, but Barack Obama let slip his plans to become a modern-day Robin Hood in the White House, confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor. Check out this clip where he tells an Ohio plumber that he intends to take the profits of small-business owners and “spread the wealth around” to those with lesser incomes. The fracas over Obama’s tax plan broke out Sunday outside Toledo when Joe Wurzelbacher approached the candidate. Wurzelbacher told Obama that he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.
“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the blue-collar worker asked. After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: “I’ve worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I’m buying this company and I’m going to continue working that way. I’m getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream.” “It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama told him. “I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success, too.
Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the
bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Critics said Obama let the cat out of the bag. “It’s clear that his main goal is redistribution of wealth, not growth,” said Andy Roth with the anti-tax group Club for Growth. Obama has been meticulous, Roth said, to conceal the “socialistic”nature of his tax plans. “But every once in a while, he lets it slip,”he said.
What did Joe the Plumber think? When asked if Mr. Obama’s response about “spreading the wealth around” satisfied him, “His answer actually scared me even more,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said. “He said he wants to distribute wealth. And I mean, I’m not trying to make statements here, but, I mean, that’s kind of a socialist viewpoint. You know, I work for that. You know, it’s my discretion who I want to give my money to; it’s not for the government decide that I make a little too much and so I need to share it with other people. That’s not the American Dream.”
Too often we think the American dream is being able to achieve greater material prosperity. But as historian and writer James Truslow Adams who coined the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book “Epic of America” says:
“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
The key phrase there is “social order.” If government deems that the split between the rich and the poor is too wide, then it goes and helps to adjust that.
Plus, just as God gives us soooo much, we should give back to others. One would argue that they want their own individual right to choose where to give their money. But it makes me wonder, if we had to pay no taxes, would people still give that money to others? Some maybe. Probably not the 25-35% we give now.
Thankfully there are many people in this country that are givers. (and praisefully there are many who are cheerful givers). However, I would guess that the majority of people, given the option if they had no taxes would not give away that money. We know that giving is a good thing. And those of us that love to give, want to make sure what we give is getting put to good use. So it can be frustrating to see the government not spend it wisely in some cases.
However, I’d rather have the government force people to say “you make a little too much, so you have to give” rather than people not giving at all.
Oh if I could add one more point. We can all agree that giving is a good thing. We are called to give. I view my taxes as part of that giving. If the government calls me to give more, then I shall happily give more, because it forces me to give. I know that I don’t give enough. And the challenge to give more is a good one. I can happily say I’m a cheerful tax payer.