Joe the Plumber
Joe the Plumber stopped by to see me about his divorce today. “I worked all these years using my own blood, sweat and tears to build up my business. She wants part of it. And Barack Obama wants some of it.”
“Come on, Joe, it’s not that bad. Let’s look at it more carefully,” I say. “Obama’s tax plan provides a $3,000 tax credit for every new job you create, a reduction in taxes if you make less than $250,000 a year, and no capital gains if you sell your business.”
“It doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way. But what about my wife? She never worked a day during our marriage,” says Joe.
“Your wife gave up her own career to raise your kids and make a home for you so that you were able to work so hard to build up your business. The law provides that the judge has to consider, among other factors, the contributions, monetary and nonmonetary, of each party.”
“So what you’re telling me,” says Joe, “is that I have two silent partners in my business – my lazy Uncle Sam and my wife.”
“That’s one way of looking at it, Joe,” I tell him. “Where are you going?”
As Joe leaves my office, he turns and says, “I’m going to see if my wife wants to buy my plumbing business.”
Tags: Barack Obama, capital gains, Divorce, Joe the Plumber, Marriage, monetary and nomonetary contributions, Taxes, Wife
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October 17th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Fun read, but why not put the shoe on the other foot?
Jane the Plumber works her tail off in corporate America to cover family health insurance needs, raises the kids, brings home the bacon, covers all the expenses soup-to-nuts with the expectation that her loser husband, who hasn’t been able to hold a salaried or full-time job since 1997, will, after 5 years of marriage, finally get it together and either (a) be successful in his own business; (b) get a real job and keep it; or (c) take over house cleaning and day care relieving the wife of those burdens. Wife finally gets fed up, realizes he’s a slug and doesn’t want to raise her kids with them thinking thats OK. Husband now believes he’s entitled to a piece of her retirement, investments and God knows what else that SHE’s worked so hard for. She’s already given him a charmed life, including buying him his own business, vacations, no financial responsibilites, etc. for 10 years. It’ll sure be interesting to see how that works out for her!