There was a lot of political talk last week in the US about this guy "Joe the Plumber". I'm really quite mystified by the (lack of) Democratic response to this one; it seems like a perfect opportunity for the Dems to explain what their ideals actually mean, after years of complete inarticulacy.

The Republican party, and conservatives in general, have somehow successfully sold their platform of, as Robert Reich brilliantly put it on the Daily Show last week, "socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else", to poor but socially-conservative citizens for quite some time. They've convinced people to vote against their economic self-interest, and cut taxes on the rich instead of themselves.

Is voting for policies that directly benefit you less necessarily bad? I don't think so. In many cases, selflessness and altruism are better in the long run. Conservative economic policies speak to a sense of right and wrong that give people a feeling of purpose, and so an incentive to create: this is mine, I made it, you can't take it away. In a theoretical sense, leaving more wealth in the hands of the rich should "trickle down" to society in general, by providing more capital, and thus creating jobs, etc.

However, I do not believe that this is why Americans, specifically, tend to support conservative economic policy. The USA has this idea of the "American Dream", pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, if you will, and striking it rich through hard work and character. It's advantageous for conservatives to sell this idea because it makes people think "tax the rich? What if I get rich?", which is a sort of enlightened self-interest, arguably. And it gets poor people to vote for them.

What makes this "plumber" thing interesting to me is that is should demonstrate where this approach ought to fall down, logically and emotionally. But it does not. Here is the problem.

A working stiff who earns "five figures", such as myself, generally makes that money by going to an employer every day, performing some services for them, and then drawing a paycheck. Where this money comes from is abstracted away (this is the marvelous thing we call "business"). Let's say you want to sell the "American Dream" to this person. They get their paycheck every week, and there's a chunk taken out of it by Uncle Sam. Maybe they're saving up to start a business, or go to college, etc. They sure could do it faster if taxes weren't so high. So you remind them this: when you do strike it rich (since this is America, where anyone can strike it rich), do you want those taxes to be even greater?

This story contains a lie of omission, probably the greatest lie ever told in US politics, and one that has almost universally succeeded as far back as I can remember. And that is: when you do make that jump to where our hypothetical Joe is, making just over a quarter-million dollars, that it's not going to look any different. You'll get your paycheck from some abstracted source, just like before, but more will be taken out unless we stop raising taxes on those higher income brackets. There will be some node higher up in the tree for that wealth to "trickle down" from; you could say it's implied, even, that wealth is created at the root and destroyed at the leaves.

What's wrong here? Simple: a self-employed plumber does not have a paycheck, except maybe to him/herself for accounting purposes. They collect their income in the form of payments from customers. They don't have an abstraction: they hire more labor and become the abstraction. If their customers have no money, the abstraction leaks, their employees have to be laid off (and then can no longer afford plumbing services themselves). The success of the plumber depends as much on how many people are able to pay them as it does on his costs (such as taxes). We want to make sure those customers can still pay. This is, in theory terms, the idea of demand-side or Keynesian economics. (Not really exactly. I took about two econ courses. But bear with me for a moment.)

Now, you can argue demand-side vs. what we would call supply-side economics, which is the idea that no, first you have to stop taxing Joe so he can hire people so they have money to go buy things, for ages. People have made whole careers out of it. I am not here to do that. What I am here to wonder out loud is: why is this argument not happening, now, in our public sphere? Even if only as a small plot point in one Presidential campaign? There are very good arguments for both sides (I agree with the Keynesians, myself), and they should be what this debate is about, not digging up dirt on some guy whose real name, horrors, might not be "Joe" or protests about all those you-know-what poor people getting "government giveaways" that are disturbingly close to racism in my opinion.

When I turn on talk radio I hear zombies, unable to string together any thought more complicated than "Democrat == higher taxes on everyone" (which would be depressing even if the claim were true). It begins to get unsettling when you understand your opponent's argument, and yet watch them completely unable to articulate it. When they deal with this by appealing to fear and thought-killing sound bites, it gets alarming.

Obama has backpedaled whenever the whole issue has come up. In the last debate, he was saved by merely shutting up and letting out enough rope for McCain to hang himself. Not very inspiring. As a result I hear repetitions of Obama's phrase "spread the wealth around" constantly met on the airwaves with... silence. He won't touch it, and honestly, I can't blame him for not wanting to fan the flames of class warfare with only two more weeks left to stick it out. But I don't understand why, and why a single person on the left hasn't had the faith that this idea can be discussed in our society. I think that, whichever side you are rooting for (and yeah, I am for the Democrats), the Democrats should have won this point readily. Not to belabor the point, but it really amazes me that they have not. It wouldn't have taken much.

Here's what you do: go to Wherever, OH with your crack PR team and find several of "Joe the Plumber"s customers. Interview them all. A few of them are, in this economy, going to be really hurting. If you're lucky: Remember that Joe owes taxes to the IRS. Very possibly, someone owes Joe money! That would be a coup. You just put them in front of the media and the whole thing sells itself. Mary needs to make these repairs... if only her tax credit were larger... etc. This would not settle the argument, by any means, especially not for political junkies. But it would begin it. We could talk about policy, whether one way of "spreading" things will result in more wealth to spread than another, instead of red-baiting. I feel a bit ripped off that we haven't even gotten that much. The theory part is pretty much irrelevant to most people; that's fine. But they deserve context.

I can only assume that my ("my") party is still either terrified or stupid. I hope winning the Presidency changes that somewhat. That whole right and wrong, purpose, "noble cause" thing, right? Right, guys?