I know joe has been exposed a a delusional fraud, but here is an interesting take on a real buisness and their interest.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081017/BUSINESS07/810170386/?imw=Y
Michigan businesses' issues differ from Joe the Plumber's
Joe the Plumber supposedly worries about taxes on a $250,000 income. Lillian the Plumber, whose business has been in metro Detroit since 1901, worries about paying bills and making payroll.
They may share the same profession, but Lillian Powerski says the now infamous Ohio man is no average Joe -- despite the fuss about him in Wednesday's presidential debate.
Powerski owns Powierski Plumbing and Heating in Shelby Township. The business name has a different spelling because some family members dropped the "i" over the years. Her company has been around for generations, started by her late husband's grandfather.
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama tried to reach out to people like Powerski by addressing Joe the Plumber's concerns. But some local small business owners couldn't relate to the plumber's plight.
Powerski is the matriarch of a family of plumbers -- she runs the business and her three sons, Mark, Gary and Ron, do the plumbing.
She listened to the debate Wednesday, but wasn't moved by the Joe the Plumber story that McCain used to criticize Obama's tax plan.
"He's asking for more than I'm asking for," Lillian Powerski said about plumbing business worker Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher's objections to Obama's proposals to increase taxes on those making more than $250,000.
"I just want them to be fair to small businesses. ... I'm not a greedy person, I just want to be able to pay my bills," she said, her voice cracking.
Powerski said she has always voted Republican, but this year she expects to vote for Obama. The Republicans make promises, she said, but haven't delivered. She's tired of seeing billion-dollar companies bailed out, when she faces high taxes. She's tired of good customers who can't pay their bills.
"I don't want more of the same," she said. Obama "can't be any worse."
Wurzelbacher was thrust into the spotlight Wednesday after a Sunday encounter in Toledo when he told Obama that he was preparing to buy the plumbing company where he works. Wurzelbacher indicated that the business earns more than $250,000 a year, and said: "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"
Obama said that under his proposal taxes on any revenue from $250,000 on down would stay the same, but that amounts above that level would be subject to a 39% tax, instead of the current 36% rate.
In his first 24 hours of fame, however, many holes formed in Wurzelbacher's story. ABC News reported that Wurzelbacher wants to purchase the plumbing business for $250,000 to $280,000, not that he would net that much in profits. He would make much less, he said.
He also owes unpaid income taxes and his income was about $40,000 in 2006, according to the Toledo Blade. He isn't a licensed plumber.
Obama's plan actually would help Wurzelbacher, said Obama spokesman Brad Carroll.
"Since Joe the Plumber makes less than $250,000, he won't see a dime of tax increase under the Obama plan, and he's likely to get a tax cut," Carroll said in an e-mail Thursday.
McCain continued to push the plumber's plight Thursday, telling supporters outside Philadelphia that Wurzelbacher's story would resonate.
Although he felt some affinity toward Joe the Plumber, the debate gimmick didn't sway Bruce Milen, owner of Southfield-based Jax Kar Wash.
Milen said he's leaning toward supporting McCain because of traditional Republican small-government policies. But the 61-year-old, who inherited the business from his father, is realistic about promises.
"The reality is, the things they try to do, they can't get done. The decisions are made by Congress," Milen said, adding that most of the tax policies that are problematic are at the state level, not the federal level.
Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank, said neither candidate has proposed radical tax changes. Obama's plan appears to be undoing previous tax cuts for the relatively prosperous or people with a lot of investment income, Johnson said.
"We're hyperventilating too much about taxes here," Johnson said. What's been proposed is "not going to turn a successful small business into an unsuccessful one."
Taxes aren't the only issue, said George Bednar, vice president and general manager of Adray TV Camera & Sound, a small family-owned business in Dearborn that has survived competition against big-box appliance and electronics stores.
Bednar has worked with the Adray family since 1978. He said small business owners are concerned about health care, schools and making sure government invests in small business.
Taxes "are not the only thing going on," he said, adding he still hasn't made up his mind about who'll get his vote Nov. 4. "Sometimes some of our politicians need to listen more."
Contact MARY FRANCIS MASSON at [email protected].
