My LTTE to the Orlando Sentinel: "Plumber" Joe is a Republican Plant.

[ddeclue]

Dear Editors:

"Plumber" Joe is a Republican Plant.

He's been put there to give a face and a name (however fictionalized) to right wing talking points.

He's the "Harry and Louise" of this campaign trying to convince people to vote against their best interests by looking something like a middle class voter but certainly NOT doing what is in a middle class voter's interest.

It's the Republican propaganda technique made famous by the movie "Wag the Dog":

Create an interesting character and narrative, create a lot of buzz about it and there will be a lot of uncritical thinkers that will go along with it no matter what the consequences are to themselves or how irrational the story sounds.

Time for a reality check:

How many plumbers make $250,000/year? Very few - Almost certainly near zero.

I know very few doctors and lawyers that make this kind of money. I'm a degreed engineer and computer programmer and I don't even come close to this kind of money.

The Republicans are trying to use "Joe" to confuse voters into conflating a business' gross sales with a individual's personal income.

The truth is that when a business pays an employee a salary, that money comes out of their bottom line - it is an expense so it never is part of the business' income in the first place to be taxed.

The government does NOT tax businesses on their gross sales - it taxes them on the INCOME which is the difference between the gross sales minus the expenses of the business - property lease, equipment, utility bills, salaries, office supplies are all EXPENSES that are deducted from the gross sales in order to arrive at taxable income.

Joe is clearly a Republican "Wag the Dog" Plant:

- He's so obviously been well prepped for talking on TV with the Republican talking points

- He was all too easy for the press to find and interview immediately.

- He's NOT what he says he is - a licensed plumber.

- He doesn't make anywhere near the amount of money he talked about and really has no prospect of doing so by buying Newell Plumbing in Toledo Ohio.

- His past coincindentally leads him to both Phoenix Arizona and Alaska from which both McCain and Palin hail.

- Type in Wurzelbacher into the FEC.gov website and EVERY single donation that pops out is to a Republican and there are tens of thousands of dollars donated.

- Type in Wurzelbacher into the Ohio Secretary of State Division of Elections website and EVERY single donation that pops out is to a Republican and there are tens of thousands of dollars donated.

- Robert Wurzelbacher, Jr. was the son-in-law of Charles Keating who was the mastermind of the banking fraud scheme that John McCain was reprimanded by the Senate for.

Does anyone think for a moment that these two Wurzelbachers are not related? Talk about your incredible coincidences... NOTE TO REPUBLICAN MASTERMINDS: At LEAST do us the favor of using someone named John Smith next time and don't insult our intelligence.

- Finally, although it is not indicative of anything, I find it quite ironic that when he lived in Arizona, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher lived at 1960 Keating Avenue in Mesa AZ according to zabasearch.com - the street is named after Charles Keating of Keating Five fame.

Voters - Do you want to be bamboozled by the Republican propaganda machine again? Or do you want good jobs, affordable health care, a college education for your kids and responsible competent people leading the government?

The choice is yours this November.

Respectfully,

Doug D.
Orlando, FL