Barack Obama Springs A Leak

Fred Garvin's picture

Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber to come and fix it.

Joe drives to Obama’s house, which is located in a very nice neighborhood and where it’s clear that all the residents make more than $250,000 per year. Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it's an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes.

Obama asks Joe how much it will cost.

Joe immediately says, "$9,500."

"$9,500?" Obama asks, stunned. "But you said it's an easy repair!"

"Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than that for free," explains Joe. "It's always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way. It's known as 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act of 2008.' Surprised you haven’t heard of it, senator."

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there's no way he’s paying that much for a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves.

Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Joe's price, Obama does nothing.

The leak under Obama’s sink goes unrepaired for the next several days. A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there's a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads with him to return.

Joe goes back to Obama’s house, looks at the leaky pipe, and says "Let's see – this will cost you about $21,000."

"A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!" Obama quickly fires back.

Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. "Well, because of the 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act,' a lot of rich people are learning how to fix their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing I'm doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a result, the rate I have to charge my wealthy paying customers rises every day. "Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the group of people who get it for free has skyrocketed, and there’s a long waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, and they’re not being replaced – nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they won’t make any money. I'm hurting now too – all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won't pay their fair share."

Obama tries to straighten out the plumber: "Of course you're hurting, Joe! Don't you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services, you’ll be broke, and then what will you do?"

Joe immediately replies, "Run for president, apparently.”

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Love the analogy, Fred
Submitted by USArmybrat on Thu, 11/27/2008 - 6:09pm.

It's so easy to see the sense of it all, isn't it? God, it's stunning the number of people that are too blind, or too ignorant or both to see what is coming for this country.

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Fred and brat
Submitted by Nitpickers on Thu, 11/27/2008 - 6:59pm.

Do you mean that it may get worse next
January than it is now?

Do you mean to say that more than 10,000 homes per week will be foreclosing as the number is now?

Do you mean we may have three or four wars instead of two going?

Do you mean that we will, in addition to bailing out all of our car companies that we will bail out the Japanese also?

Do you mean we will be having 0ver 5,000 killed and 30,000 seriously wounded every five years starting next year? How many more? Twice as much?

Do you mean the rest of the banks may fail next year that haven't already?

Do you mean that unemployment may grow to twice as much next year, maybe to 10-15%?

Yeah, it may get worse sure enough!

But just maybe we will build a few bridges, dams, and roads; redo the health system; and save social security instead of buying bank debt with our money!

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Perfect example of socialism, Fred. Yep nit, it will get worse
Robert W. Morgan's picture
Submitted by Robert W. Morgan on Fri, 11/28/2008 - 7:45am.

Yes to every one of your questions, nitpickers -plus

Major retail failures - which means Dollar Stores instead of Kohls and very few Home Depot's and about 80% failure rate in restaurants.

Since none of those failed retailers or their shopping center developers will be paying taxes, your property taxes will double over the next 3 years. Mine will be over $1,000 per month. Hard to justify that on a house that will be decreasing in value every year.

The Feds will run every bank and none of those bailout dollars are going to be seen by you or me or anyone else who is paying their mortgage on time.

Retirement funds will disappear or be seized by the government to supplement social security. Then your total retirement package will be about $2500 per month, but your property taxes and insurance premiums will take 1/2 of that. And your house will be worth about 1/2 of what it was worth last year, so a reverse mortgage won't help at much - if the Federally-controlled banks even allow them.

The idiotic premise that the top 5% of income earners will accept a tax increase to fund a tax rebate and outright welfare for the other 95% has no chance at all. Most of the 5% will retire, go out of business or take their jobs overseas. Maybe the Clinton retreads who had to explain all this to Clinton can explain it to the Messiah.


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Morgan: coming socialism
Submitted by Bonkers on Fri, 11/28/2008 - 11:36am.

I really don't see how Obama can socialize us anymore than the Bush administration has caused!
It would be impossible! They have socialized enough to support our whole GDP for nearly a year!!!

Maybe we won't need any of your taxes! The income off the preferred stock we are buying from the banks, along with all of the foreclosure papers we own--which we can fix-up and sell, may support us.

Put a little tariff on our food exports, and our technical exports, and there you are!

Well, we could add a 31% sales tax and send poor people about $300 a week in cash--what a rush at the banks that would be every Friday! Liquor stores, grocery stores, and cigarette sales would triple that day.

Also, the lottery would grow enormously every Friday. Along with horse racing, gambling, and games we will allow here.

Of course the Salvation Army will have to feed them every Monday through Thursday. Why work at all if bucks are coming in every Friday?

We will really need the illegals then to do the menial work.

I disagree on the property taxes going up so much at same time as houses are shrinking 50%.
We would then hang or gang tar and feather and ride out on a rail most of the office employees in town!
They couldn't collect it anyway!

Any idea what all of the lawyers will do in this depression?
Doctors will keep working but for one-third as much.
Many will quit medical school and take up plumbing!

The thing to have is a job in Washington at $200 grand.

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