Joe the Plumber

In case you missed it Joe the Plumber died the other day. It's been years since the Republicans last used him as their beyond-condescending "we love the regular folks!" prop, so it was a little surprising to even see his name in the news. I'm sorry he died, but back in 2008 I was correct in the moment about this:

You really gotta hand it to Joe the Plumber. Here's a dude who is coming out saying that he's just not interested in paying taxes, yet was incredibly curious about how much in taxes he would hafta pay if he made $250K, even though he is presently unemployed. I suppose that's like a starving man worrying about how clean the toilets are.

Republicans love to throw around accusations all the time that taxes are what stops people from being entrepreneurs, which I call out as being absolute bullshit: if your dream to build your own business can be stopped before it even starts because of taxes you "might" have to pay IF said business is even successful in the first place, then maybe starting a business isn't a dream of yours in the first place?

We'd all be a lot better off in the goddam world if we both cut out the American Dream shit and stopped staying up nights worrying about what we'd hafta pay in taxes if we won the goddam Powerball tomorrow.