I dunno ... I just don't think I want to triple my salary if I have to pay that extra $121 to the tax man ...

Joe the Plumber just won't go away. I wonder how long it will be before he gets his own action figure.

David Frum guest-hosted The Current on CBC Radio this morning from Washington D.C. He was speaking to a conservative economist whose name I missed just as I pulled into work today, who professed himself "terrified" at the prospect of a Democratic White House and Congress. While this is unsurprising (perhaps I should direct him to my recent blog post about conservatives endorsing Obama, in case he missed the bandwagon), he also trotted out one of those arguments about Obama's tax plan that contains a certain kind of logic I've never understood.

The argument, paraphrased, goes something like this: "You've got the Joe the Plumber type of guy, who works hard, putting in his twelve-hour days so he can buy his own company ... but if he realizes that, once he does that, he'll get hit with higher taxes, is he going to bother?"

I always hear this sort of argument and think to myself "Um ... yes?" Keeping in mind of course that at this point Joe the Plumber is an entirely fictional and hypothetical figure, let's work from the numbers: the average plumber in the U.S., it was reported, earns somewhere in the neighbourhood of $40K-$60K. Under the Obama plan, he would save $1118 in taxes, and $325 under McCain's plan. His projected income, were he to purchase his company, would be around $250K -- a healthy jump, I think we'll all admit. Now, whether that is what his company would earn or what he would himself be making was never made entirely clear; but it still constitutes a fourfold increase in earnings. With McCain's planned tax cuts, he would get back an extra $8,159 -- not chump change. So what is the exhorbitantly high amount of extra taxes he would pay under Obama's plan? $121. Seriously.

Still -- let's say for the sake of argument that he would pay under Obama what he would save under McCain. Is this a serious detriment to making the transition from a $60K job to a $250K job?

All of these numbers, by the bye, come from Parade.com.


In other news, I'm starting to think that Joe Six-Pack and Joe the Plumber are starting to feel lonely, and need an expanded family of working-class cliches. How about Waitress Jane and Joe the Short-Order Cook? Or Joe Trailer Park? I welcome suggestions ...