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"Joe the Plumber" Isn't a Licensed Plumber. Oh, and His Name is Sam

posted October 16, 2008 - 7:21pm
"Joe the Plumber" Isn't a Licensed Plumber. Oh, and His Name is Sam

The star of last night's presidential debate was "Joe the Plumber," an Ohio plumber who had spoken to Barack Obama about taxes at an Obama appearance. But just as things in politics aren't always what they seem, things with Joe the Plumber are not quite what they appear to be. < p>

As a Reuters article points out, the plumber's real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher, though he goes by Joe (which apparently is his middle name).

More surprising, though, is that Wurzelbacher is not a licensed plumber. According to a member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 50 in Toledo, Ohio, this means that Wurzelbacher "has not completed the training program necessary for him to sit for a license test." Not having this license means that he can't practice in the city of Toledo but can work for someone with a master's license in the city. Or he can work as a plumber in areas outside of Toledo that don't require a license.

Wurzelbacher was talking to Obama because he was concerned that the candidate's tax plans would tax him more heavily than he is now. Obama has said that his tax plan would not raise taxes on taxpayers making $250,000 a year or less.

Wurzelbacher said he was interested in buying the plumbing company he worked for. (Wouldn't it be a good idea to become a licensed plumber before buying a plumbing business?)

In any case, some plumbers interviewed for the Reuters article said that none of their colleagues made anywhere close to $250,000 a year.

And Wurzelbacher might want to be more worried about taxes past than taxes future: news reports say he owes the State of Ohio nearly $1,200 in back taxes, and the state filed a tax lien against him more than a year and a half ago that is still active today.

To add yet another interesting twist to the Joe the Plumber story, the Web site crooksandliars.com says that Wurzelbacher is related to Charles Keating... the disgraced savings and loan owner who tried to buy favors with several U.S. Senators, including John McCain, in the "Keating Five" scandal in the 1990s.

So while Joe the Plumber has been appearing on TV shows because of his newfound popularity due to the debate, his 15 minutes of fame may die out pretty quickly... "Sam the Plumber's Apprentice" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

But apparently there is a guy named Joe who really is a plumber and is getting some increased attention because of the debate: Joe Francis, a plumber in Amarillo, Texas who owns the Web site JoeThePlumber.com. Francis has apparently been offered all kinds of money by people wanting to buy his domain name.

Author: Idlewild
-A +A


Comments

The fact that

souman - Fri, 2009-23-10 3:09 am

The fact that Joe isn't a licensed plumber means only one thing: The government hasn't certified him. That fact says nothing about his actual plumbing abilities.....plumbing services

Joe the plumber

Idlewild - Mon, 2008-27-10 12:19 pm
Veghead and WLP-- no need to apologize; I'm guilty of leading more than a few threads off topic myself. By the way, Joe the Plumber is now thinking of running for Congress, so anyone concerned about him being "thrust" into the media doesn't have to worry. Wurzelbacher has thrown himself headlong into the media spotlight and seems to be eager for more!

Vegies?

L Wagen - Sun, 2008-26-10 2:56 pm
Yes, I put human life above animal rights, and I care about unborn, and born life, as all Right To Lifers do, that's why most Lifers are against capital punishment. You know lard, pigs fat, turns into hydrolized animal protein, or hydrolizied animal fat in food, so if you give up meat, you need to give up all processed food, such as pizza dough(for cheese pizzas), cookies, cakes, donuts, margarine, etc. so read your ingredients carefully before you swallow. Boy, I must have hit a nerve or Veghead wouldn't have been so prolific, nothing I haven't heard before. A lot of animal rights people, want less people(more abortions) and more animals, even though they are human themselves, but originally you hid behind women's reproductive rights, and the fetus as a potential human arguments. Yes, humans are animals just my point. Thanks for making my point for me. And apologies to Idlewild for getting off the subject, but say I wanted my dog Sadie to not deliver the puppies, would it be all right if I took her to my vet to have the puppy babies aborted? Don't get long winded please, for Idlewild's sake, a yes or no answer will suffice.

fetuses/blastocysts/embryos are undeveloped, potential animals

veghead - Sat, 2008-25-10 4:16 pm
Because humans beings are animals too. That's just basic biology. So why treat nonhuman animals with less respect than human animals? Why it is not a crime to kill and exploit animals in labs, factory farms, hunting, circuses, bullfights, rodeos, etc.? I personally am pro-abortion/birth control (for all animals, not just nonhuman animals), although many animal rights people are pro-choice but anti-abortion, which I find ethically contradictory. For one thing, there are far too many humans on the planet who seem to think we're the Master Species and get to overbreed with impunity, while killing off wildlife (also created by and loved by God, in your view), despoiling the only planet we have to live on, and manufacturing millions upon millions of genetically engineered domesticated animals in the cruelest of circumstances for human consumption and companionship. It's nuts, it's selfish, and it's sadistic. If you take away the right to get abortions, you will be condemning thousands of women to death, because they'll just get back alley abortions from butchers who don't know what they're doing and just want to make some bucks for doing it. Abortions have always been available, legally or illegally, so why not make it safe for women to get them, if you care about life so much? Why do you care more about a potential human than a full-fledged one who's already walking around? And how do you figure that nonhuman animals were put on earth for us to eat? Actually, both vegetarian and carnivorous views are expressed in the bible, so if you're using the bible as your source, that won't work. Protein, BTW, is completely available from vegetal sources. It's a fallacy that you need meat/dairy/eggs to get complete protein. However, I am glad to hear that you're against capital punishment. That's a plus! Sorry to the original xombyte writer (Idle? I forgot!) about taking this discussion completely off Joe the Plumber. I will now rest my case and move on, to check out Obama tonight in Albuquerque if the crowd isn't too huge. So consider all my questions here rhetorical.

veghead's Xombytes

Oh, okay, but Don't Jump to Conclusions

L Wagen - Fri, 2008-24-10 12:13 pm
I'll try not to be scared, but my non-identifying bio remains. And nobody's perfect. There is no perfect President, or VP because there is not a perfect person. When we get to Heaven, it will be perfect, and we will have no need for government. But a lot of pro-life, anti-abortion people are also anti-death penalty, as I am. Don't jump to conclusions. If you look up Arizona Right to Life website you will see that's true, http://www.arizonarighttolife.org/ But I can't understand how you can be proabortion, and a vegetarian against killing animals, when you regulate a fetus to the level of an animal. You claim it's alive, not a plant, but not a human being. It's contradictory. I believe it's a human being immersed with a human soul, with human DNA from the moment of conception, and animals were put on Earth for us to eat, and provide needed protein. If every woman, and man would not even think of killing a human being, born, or unborn we wouldn't need laws, or government, but until we do we have to legally protect their(the born, and unborn) natural rights.

WLP, I figured out you're a she

veghead - Fri, 2008-24-10 11:16 am
And so am I, so I'm speaking to you as a girlfriend. Don't be scared of us lefties. We want the best for our country, just like you should. As I've said before, McCain is a good man--he's a long-time friend of Biden, who also likes him as a person. He's just not presidential material: his age, his health, his mood swings, his indecisiveness, and his tendency to gamble when dealing with important issues should dissuade anybody from voting for him, not to mention the terribly inexperienced lady who may have to take his place. You betcha she's a cutie, but ya gotta be more than cute to be president! As for being adamantly "pro-death", how is giving us women reproductive choice being pro-death? If anything, right wingers are pro-death (they're pro-capital punishment and pro-hunting). If you really like McCain as your senator, then I suggest you encourage him to remain your senator by voting for Barack Obama. And in this grave recession we're now in, there's no way I would feel comfortable with McCain as president. Look at how he reacted when the stock market plunge began--he was all over the map and clearly befuddled about what to do.

veghead's Xombytes

WLP-Wagen Load Productions is a She!

L Wagen - Thu, 2008-23-10 11:49 pm
Veghead keeps calling me a "he"; hey if you check my profile you will see I'm a "she"! A she that's scared of all you lefties, so I don't put too many identifying features in my bio! And yes, I think Sarah Palin is awesome too! You know John McCain is my Senator, and I believe every time I write him on a subject, I don't get a form letter( I can tell a form letter when I see it). I get a personal letter. And I'm unemployed, it's not like I donate thousands to his campaign, either. Once when I wrote him about immigration, I received 15 pages of a copy of his last committee meeting on immigration. I thought that was thoughtful. He is not eloquent, and good with words like Obama, but like most Arizonans is a straight shooter. It's better if meaning is behind those fancy words. Senator Obama scares me. He is adamantely pro-death(abortion), he hangs out with terrorists, and is socialistic. The one thing I do like is his policy that all employers carry health insurance for their employees, and level the playing field among businesses. It's unfair if some small businesses carries health insurance, and the others don't. And this is a subject of a future xombyte, but I worked for a family owned business(Pierce Eislen) who liked to fire non-family members right before the health insurance was about to kick in. Of course, they claimed that all of those Arizonans that they fired were incompetent. Obviously, there is a problem with employer paid health insurance in Arizona. It's a real issue.

@ vbm: No problem

Idlewild - Thu, 2008-23-10 9:11 pm
"I'm sorry about this one idlewild, these are not topics of light fodder." Well, like I said, I've wandered far off topic in some posts I've commented on, so I really have no right to complain.

what about the policy and the ramifications...

vbm2424 - Thu, 2008-23-10 9:05 pm
I guess that doesn't matter as long as there is SOME kind of change. Well see if this matters to anyone: picture this - an infant born in the eighth month of pregnancy is removed from it's mothers womb, the doctor casually takes the baby, lays it on a stainless steel table, turns and goes back to attend to the mother. The baby hasn't had his/her airway cleared, hasn't been warmed, nothing. It lays there cold, dying, as if it is not even in the room, sruggling to taken in his/her first breathe of life, but still no help from anyone in the delivery room. A few minutes later, silence, no struggle, no movement, no life, the baby is dead. Not just dead, but murdered. That is what your candidate is willing to let happen. At the discretion of a who? a mom unwilling to put out the effort to fight for the life that she so casually layed down to conceive. This not fantacy. All because the mom decided she didn't want to have to take care of a possible special needs child. What do you mean by the following statement: "You know, vbm, there's really nothing wrong with any of the political systems we've seen so far on this planet, at least on paper--they'll pretty much all work--it's the inevitable corruption of the leaders that administer the political systems that causes them to malfunction." Have you ever heard of North Korea, Sharia Law, The Holocaust, Communist Russia, just to name a few. It is people that share your mindset that shouldn't be allowed to vote. I'm sorry about this one idlewild, these are not topics of light fodder.

democracy and capitalism are a difficult duo

veghead - Thu, 2008-23-10 7:54 pm
compared to that pair, particularly as we've seen lately, democracy plus socialism is a cinch. Gosh, I only wish that Obama were a socialist (which is not the same as a communist, BTW, but right wingers just love to fudge words, e.g., Muslim-terrorist), but alas, he's only microscopically to the left of center . . . You know, vbm, there's really nothing wrong with any of the political systems we've seen so far on this planet, at least on paper--they'll pretty much all work--it's the inevitable corruption of the leaders that administer the political systems that causes them to malfunction.

veghead's Xombytes

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