I Am Joe.

I am Joe The Plumber.

No, I am not a plumber, and my name is not Joe, and I do not make $250,000 per year.

But I am Joe The Plumber, just the same.

In 2006, I quit my job as a company driver at a lumber distribution center where I made a little over $40,000 per year. I took my retirement savings, my personal savings, my grocery and rent money, and whatever I could borrow from family members, and put a down payment on a tractor trailer truck of my own.

Had things stayed the way they were, the payment would have been manageable, and I would have been very successful.

But they didn't.

When fuel prices doubled that year, the freight rates stayed the same, and I did several weeks of work for a man who just decided not to pay me for it. I worked harder and harder, for more and more hours each week, for less and less money, until January of 2008, when the finance company came and took the truck away from me.

I worked 16 hours in the truck the day they took it away.

I wound up right back in a company truck, only without the money that I had saved up, my credit rating shot to death, and still in debt.

I worked as hard as a man can work, and in the end, I would have been better off if I had taken a year off and played video games.

That's how it goes. When you take risks, you sometimes lose.

But - If I had been successful, I would have bought another truck by now, maybe two. I would have employed another driver or two, maybe a part time book keeper. My trucks would have provided work for a local mechanic, business for the local truck parts store, tire dealer, and fuel stop.

THAT'S "spreading the wealth around".

But I failed.

And nobody bailed me out. Nor would I have wanted them to.

You see, I know, because I found out the hard way, how difficult it is to be successful running your own business, and the people who make it work should be celebrated by the whole community.

Not labeled "The Rich", and attacked and expected to hand over ever increasing amounts of the rewards that they earn through their sacrifice, talent, or plain old hard, back-breaking and tedious work.

I will try again. Some day, I will again be self employed, employ other people, and spread the wealth around my community the way it should be done, and I will take the lessons that I learned the first time and build upon them so that I stand a better chance at success next time.

And I get very angry when I see others around me attempting to stack the deck against me before I get there, simply because they themselves are unwilling to take the chances , work the hours, shoulder the responsibility that I do.

I am Joe The Plumber.

And so are you.

Palin Too Naive For Office?

Maybe the Left is right about Sarah Palin...

Maybe she actually is too naive and inexperienced for the office of Vice President of the United States...

I didn't think so until today, when I heard about this...

From The Politico...

Palin: Obama must ‘rein in’ ACORN

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin suggested Tuesday that Barack Obama shares responsibility for recent reports of voter fraud conducted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

“Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN,” Palin said during an interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Palin said the group is responsible for the “unconscionable situation we are facing now with voter fraud” and attacked the Obama campaign for not addressing the problem after the McCain campaign sent a letter to the Democratic camp urging action against voter fraud in September.

If Sarah Palin actually believes that Barack Obama is going to lift a finger to restrain ACORN, or to counteract Voter Fraud, she is sadly mistaken.

That would not only go against decades of Democrat Party tradition, but would virtually assure Obama's humiliating defeat in November.

She may as well call for him to cut spending, or taxes, or call upon Americans to at least attempt to solve their own problems instead of trying to vote themselves money from one another's pockets.

Obama is not going to "reign in ACORN." He is going to give them a Billion Dollars once he is elected.

No matter how many dead people and cartoon characters vote for him because of them.

And if Sarah Palin believes that he will, then maybe she really is not ready for prime time.

Just like Obama.

Here We Go Again...

"I believe that most Americans would agree on the problems this country faces and which the next administration must solve. They include the need, once again, for an economy that works.

The economy today is in very, very bad shape, the highest unemployment since the Great Depression, 50% higher than when [the current President] took office, raging inflation.

The latest wholesale price index is once again raising the specter of double-digit inflation. The purchasing power of the average American has slipped so much that it's now the equivalent of the purchasing power in 1965.

It's not getting better, it's getting worse.

All the leading indicators now point downward. Stock investors are losing confidence. Over $50 billion of value has disappeared from the stock market in less than a month.

We need a government that works, we need a government that cares, and once again, we have to get back at work on education, on health, on housing, on the environment, on energy. And we need a foreign policy that once again reflects the values and the beliefs of the American people. This will take leadership, and we need leadership, too.

The Republican administration, the Republican Party has had eight years to solve these problems. All of them have gotten worse.

The Republican ticket does not offer new plans for their solution but is engaged in a frantic effort to defend the past.

This nation desperately needs new leadership.

The [Democrat Presidential] ticket would offer a new generation of leadership dedicated to solving the problems I have listed, and that is the basis of our appeal."

Walter Mondale's opening statement from the Vice Presidential Debate against Bob Dole, October 15, 1976.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. - Alduous Huxley