Announcing the Candidacy of Plumber/Sixpack
This announcement was inevitable. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. These two possibly-real figures have been brought up in more speeches and on more news shows lately than Joe Biden. With all the attention that both Joe's have been getting, it's pretty clear that America, in general is more concerned about Plumber and Sixpack than anyone else on the planet.
They made their announcement late last night and we saw an almost immediate dramatic shift in the polls. The Joe Dream Team is now up by 15 points.
I recently sat down with the candidates so they could tell their stories, in their own words. Before we go any further, I'd like to point out that, when asked what party they'd be running under, Joe Sixpack said "Party...Til You Puke." I asked him if he was referring to 2000 EP from Andrew WK and he stuck his tongue out and swung his head around, so to suggest that yes, he was.
Let's meet our new candidates, shall we?
Joe The Plumber
Everybody's been talking about me a lot lately, because of some stuff I said to Obama. I don't really follow the polls that much, to be honest, but I assume that since everyone's talking about me so much, they must want me to be president, so I'll do that. What's my campaign about? Money, mostly.
As I said in a recent Times interview that I was asked to give for no discernible reason, it's my discretion who I want to give my money to, it's not for the government to decide I make a little too much and so I need to share it with other people. That's not the American dream. That is a belief I will hold until the day I die: The government doesn't decide who I give my money to. I do.
Also, I've decided not to give it to anyone.
"I'd like to see you try to take my money, Senator Obama"
Senator Obama thinks of himself as a "Robin Hood" figure, taking money from the greedy, evil corporations and redistributing it to the peasants. Again, as stated in the Times, I resent being called a "peasant." And if, as some have pointed out, Obama meant that I'm the greedy, evil corporation, I resent that, too. Hell, even if I'm supposed to be Robin Hood in this tricky, poorly-conceived metaphor, I'm still full of resentment. Basically I just don't want anyone touching my money.
America, I'm a simple man. All I want in this life is all of the money in the world. That's it. I want to be rich, and I just don't want anyone screwing with my hard-earned toilet money. I'm just your average plumber earning a quarter of a million dollars a year, looking to expand my empire and make sure the government isn't involved in any way. So what if I refuse to pay taxes and am not technically a licensed plumber? Should that stop me from being a plumber who wants the government to play fair? If I'm president, it will not.
This is, really, the only issue I can concretely say I'm running on. If elected, I promise the American People that no one will touch my money. Not a God Damn cent. The other issues, as well as your money, aren't really concerns of mine. I only really get inspired to raise my voice when someone is indirectly suggesting that I should have less money than I think I should, which is to say, "assloads."
"I'd like to see you try to take my money, banker from Deal or No Deal"
Joe Sixpack
Hey, I'm Joe Sixpack, and I think I should be your president, I guess. I don't really think I'd be a good president, but according to the news, America wants "someone like Joe Sixpack" to be president, and I'm more Joe Sixpack than anyone I know, so I figured Hell, why not go with the real deal, you know? Got shit else to do.
Anyway, ever since she got the nomination, Sarah Palin's been talking about how much she cares about Joe Sixpack, and everyone's calling her The Joe Sixpack Candidate. As a response, it turns out that Biden's pretty Sixpacky too, because he's from a small town in Pennsylvania and often rides on the train, or whatever. Basically, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are two people who claim to be very in touch with blue-collar, hardworking "Joe Sixpack types."
Hey, here's a thing. Let's play a little game. Let's say someone asked you to come up with a list of occupations that a blue-collar, hardworking "Joe Sixpack type" would have. I could come up with a few things. Carpenter. Construction Worker. Plumber, like my esteemed running mate, Joe. But you know what jobs wouldn't make that list?
Governor and Senator.
Laying rat traps is a blue collar job. Cleaning out gutters is. Building stuff, that too. Being in charge of Alaska is not.
I don't care what town you were born in; the second you show up on CSPAN wearing TV-makeup and expensive clothing, you've officially abandoned your right to call yourself the "Joe Sixpack Candidate."
"This might be a shovel. Isn't that blue collar? I just dig holes, like, all day. "
Oh, and let's talk about riding trains, since that's evidently an important factor in deciding who should lead our country. So, Biden rides trains to get from Point A to Point B. Great. But, if Point A is the floor of the Senate and Point B is an interview with Larry King, it doesn't matter what you take to get there. If you load up a shopping cart with some kitchen appliance and push it around your mansion, does that mean you're in touch with homeless people?
So, when you take a trainand then use it as a talking pointall it means is that you're aware of just one superficial aspect of blue collar life.
Folks, I am not Joe Biden or Sarah Palin. I am Joe Sixpack. That is, legally, my name. My dad made me change it when I crashed his car. Something about not deserving the family name. I don't quite remember. I was pretty blitzed. But ask yourself this: do you want a down-to-earth candidate, or do you want some rich, out-of-touch yuppy who does a good job at feigning down-to-earthness? If it's the second one, you've got two options there.
If it's the first one, vote for me. I'm Joe Sixpack. I work hard. I eat lunch and whistle at women who walk by. I take the train if I can afford it, but mostly I just wander around. I drink cheap beer out of an empty Jelly jar and I scream at my television when a black quarterback makes a mistakes. I gamble on dog fights. I might have a kid somewhere. Sometimes I just like to get drunk on a set of stairs and put on a hat I found. I'm just like you.
I'm aware that my running mate also said he's running for president, and I'm cool with that. We're both kinda running for president, I guess.
"We're both kinda running for president, I guess."
I only wish that I'd been interested in politics at the time of this article...or that I'd heard of this website. Then again, back then I doubt I'd have appreciated any of it. Thank you, DOB, for giving me an appreciation of politics and popular culture after the facts.
ReplyHey tools, how about we start a regressive sales tax? Poor people should have to pay 50% sales tax, gradually lowering to 10% for people who make upwards of a million each year. How has no one thought of this?
I was hoping to see joe sixpack's sixpack.
ReplyWill FTW.
ReplyIf there's anything I'm afraid of, it's that Obama won't go far enough in economic reform in the US. With a Democratic Congress (and Senate? pffft, I don't know), he could surely put through some of the most revolutionary - and at this point necessary - economic legislation since the Marshall Plan. But politics are becoming increasingly and worryingly centrist, at a time when the only credible surviving economies are socialist.
Damn, for a four year old comment, this seems pretty prophetic.
There’s no loopholes on taxes there, provided you actually spend money.
Replyannnnnnd ......... bingo. barter economy anyone? how do you tax a company that exchanges a 747 for 100 tons of raw steel?
now dont get me wrong at all here. i actualy like the idea (in theory) of a flat consumption tax, but i can poke many many many holes in the theory (too many to list here).
look its like this, tax questions arent simple, any time you take something away from someone for the benifit of others your on slipery moral ground. my example of women i have worked with getting large tax breaks for having sex with no birth control vrs my not having unwanted kids is a good one. im getting screwed no two ways about it. im being asked to pay more for someone elses mistakes. you dont get more 'unfair' than that when it comes to questions about taxes. but in truth i have looked each and every one of these women in the eyes, ive seen their children and in reality im more than willing to put up with the unfair taxes to help not the mothers but the children. sure the mothers dont diserve a reward for poor choices but can we 'punish' the mother without hurting the kids whome never had a choice at all?
put in this context should anyone feel guilty that someone with enough advantages to even be in a position for a tax on the 'rich' to effect them is being unfairly taxed?
i live on about $28,000 a year. im not hurting for anything right now, i have a nice place to live, plenty of food on my table, a car to drive, and plenty of 'play' money to do things i enjoy doing. in fact i could actualy live on much less than i have now, i could prolly live on $20,000 (less if forced into some hard decisions) a year and still have a quality life so any argument that those poor souls making $300,000 a year or more are being taken advantage of is just noise to me.
finaly if the taxes bother you that much that you dont want to pay a higher rate at the $250,000 level than make less than the cutoff. no one is FORCING anyone to make huge ammounts of money, thats a personel choice, and if you decide that $249,999 isnt enough to live on for a year and just HAVE to make that extra buck than be ready to pay the price for it. its not like the tax codes are a secret and totaly random.
Congratulations Nattie; on posting one of the most profoundly stupid things I have ever read.
ReplyLimited personal experience applied to broad generalization?
Check.
Cites exorbitant costs to becoming an electrician as a means of discrediting "licensing" while failing to provide context?
Check.
Attacks the association of Reagan with "trickle down economics" purely on semantics, when we all know "supply side economics" (happy now?) is what is being discussed.
Check.
Thinks the word "deplane" would have been used instead of "explain".
Check.
Use of insults like "epic fail" and "assbiter", especially to (poorly) conceal the fact you have no idea what you are talking about.
Check.
Your name reminds me of Nattie Light/Nattie Ice
Chuh-Check
I still support the Fair Tax, do away with the IRS completly and start using a flat tax on consumption. There's no loopholes on taxes there, provided you actually spend money.
ReplyI posted about it in detail further down, and dont feel like reposting the same stuff.
you know metal i dont totaly disagree with your idea. i DO think that a 'free market' economy is better than a government controlled one. what i take issue with is your idea that someone who makes $300,000+ a year is somehow a victim because they have to pay higher taxes, or that THEY are responcable for the majority of jobs creation in America. the truth is the employment numbers are all over the map, everything from a small town landscaper who employs 3 people part time, all the way up to mega companys with multi-million's of workers.
Replynow the whole crux of your argument seems to hinge on the idea of job creation, you imply that a company taxed more will cut jobs to afford the new tax bill, but the simple TRUTH is that company get tax credits for each and every job they create that more than offset any increase in taxes. these job tax credits were implimented specificaly to counteract your theory. so no , its pure bullshit to say that companys will cut jobs, becasue the truth is if they are having tax problems the BEST thing they can do is ADD a few workers to get those large tax credits. in fact one of the companys i used to work for would ADD people to their workforce at the 'slow' time of the year and basicaly let them stand around with their thumb in their asses just to get a tax break. this was helped on by being in new york state and having state tax breaks as well as federal for job creation. they paid almost NO taxes in NYS because of this.
anyhow if your MAKING $300,000 a year, and earning enough to STILL be TAXED on the full 300K even taking into account tax breaks than you have nothing to bitch about. as Obama said in responce to McCains saying that the US companys pay one of the highest tax rates in the world, Obama said that would be a fair statment if they actualy PAID that rate and the tax code wasnt full of loop-holes and tax breaks, the REAL (the rate that the IRS actualy GETS) American tax rate is about anywhere between 0 and 11%.
its typical republican bullshit if you ask me, the headlines read 'US pays highest tax rate in the world' and people who cant be bothered to look into it take it at face value, but when you actualy get into the fine print you see that isnt even close to the truth. but the headling, the 'on paper' tax rate of 36% give the republicans a headline they can use to add MORE loop holes and tax breaks for their favorite companys like big oil.
want a 'fair' tax code? you can start by getting rid of ALL tax breaks and loop holes, then work from there.
finaly from my end of the tax scale as a 'worker' i want to know why a woman who cant keep her legs closed and brings one kid after another into the world when she cant afford it should get a fucking $5,000 tax credit PER CHILD, when i, who is smart and responcable enough to use a fucking condom doesnt? MY 'reward' for not adding MORE burdens too society? why paying higher taxes of course.
*real
Replydamn typos
sorry about that last post, I was at school, and had to use one of their computers.
ReplyTumblingdickweed, the reall flaw in that logic is that those european countries are much smaller than the US. A more socialist economy is much more sustainable in smaller nations, but in a country the size of the US, it would be a disaster. There are too many system abusers here, and not enough producers to supply a socialist government, but with the current system we have now we have become one of the most properous nations in the history of the world, and by in large have one of the highest standards of living in the world.
Sure the system is corrupt, but a corrupt government can not fix a corrupt system. As it is our government is corrupt, and helped build the problem that we are in now, so it absurd to think that they can fix it by playing with the market. At this point the best thing that could happen is for the government to stay the fuck out of the economy and let the free market workitself out. The economy cant stabilize if you are constantly dicking with it.
oh nice, correct my bad spelling. That totaly makes your argument so much more vailid. Well im sorry if I have dislyexia. asshole
Reply"you know america still being the most wealthy nation in the world, with the highest standards of living."
ReplyFALSE. certain european countries have a MUCH higher national income/standard of living. look things up before you start talking out of your ass.
while you're at it, go back to school and get an education so you can spell basic words like "pretty" and learn where capital letters belong in a sentence, THEN start lecturing the rest of us about what a bunch of dumb socialists we are.
Hilarious! Personally, I'd rather see the candidacy of Raila "Africa's Hitler" Odinga, William "I should have set more bombs" Ayers, with Jeremiah "GOD DAMN AMERICA!" Wright as backup VP, but maybe that's just my quirk.
Replywyatt, I wasn't talking about spending of the rich, nor was I talking about the CEO's who make hundreds of millions anually.
ReplyI was talking about those people who make about $300,000 a year who run the small buisness across the country. They are the ones who provide most of us with Jobs, and those jobs provide us money.
As far as the "trickle down" system not working, it got us preaty damn far along as far as I can tell. You know america still being the most wealthy nation in the world, with the highest standards of living.
Without it we could be like, oh I dont know, Cuba. Great economic system they have there.
I do Ross!! Pick me, pick me!
ReplyDon't meant to barge in on the American Tax Debate that seems to be going on in this comments section, for some reason, but as an Australian I can tell you that having different tax brackets where the more wealthy pay more tax (and those earning less than 6k aka your school kids with part time work) don't pay any tax is a good, fair system.
We also have GST, a variation of which was mentioned earlier. (Look it up)
So before you get on your high horse and put in your 2 cents about how horrid the whole concept is why don't you do a little research into other countries that have already implemented it because despite all of your bitching it works fine. Anybody that works on the concept "I earn more because I worked for it so screw those that didn't and let's all contribute the same amount" is either ignorant or selfish or both.
And that's all I'm going to say on the matter because really this should be in the forums anyway.
Okay, common sense, devoid of political party lines and affiliations:
ReplyRich people have more money, poor people have less money, which can afford to pay more taxes?
Is anything grasping this concept? At all?
@nattie
Replyif he's rich enough to make 250000 a year, he should be able to afford getting licensed.
Look!! It's raining candy from the heavens!! I like the fish on the TV, they sing happy songs into my brain
ReplyI LIKE TO WATCH THE LEPRECHAUNS DANCE AROUND THE HOBOS
Reply"obviously your far smarter than the rest of us."
ReplyObviously so.
This article is the best political thing Cracked has run in some time, and I gather there's been some surfeit of political content on the Internet of late. You guys are totally in the tank for Palin, right? Woof woof!, etc.
"Trickle-down? Trickle-down?!?! Who taught you that stupid word? That isn’t. what. it. is. At all. Reagan never said it."
ReplyI tell you who taught me that stupid word ,David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director.
"It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory. [11] - David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director"