Tough Times Loom For The Real Joe Plumbers; Palin, Mike and Other Urban Myths

Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, asked Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, if she could call him "Joe" during their first and only debate. Since permission was granted, it seems that this campaign season has been all about Joe: "Joe Six-Pack," "Joe the Plumber."

Brandon L. Ward is president of the New York City Municipal Chapter of Blacks in Government, an employee advocacy group. He is a Mechanical Engineer with the Department of Transportation. He can be reached at brandonward@nycbig.com.

While I don't mean to get all Dr. Phil on folks, I must confess that after listening to Ms. Palin say she wants to represent ordinary Americans and stand up for "Joe Six-Pack," my curiosity was piqued.

Hence, my obvious question is, what does that mean? Could she mean "standing up" for one of those "dudes" driving a pick-up truck, working construction, picking up a six-pack on the way home from work, maybe drinking one or the whole pack when he got home to the trailer park to watch NASCAR, having to go shopping at Wal-Mart for his kids' clothes or having the kids spend their leisure time playing X-Box360 games even though their parents are barely scraping by to pay the electric bill? Again, just asking.

Trickling Down on Joe

Not to sound depressing, but with the economic struggles trickling down from Wall Street it's a no-brainer to predict that difficult times are ahead for the average Joe.

Unfortunately, for Joe the Ironworker (I will not use his real name), he was unable to work through his agency's charges against him for drinking one too many from a six-pack. Let me explain. Several weeks ago, before Joe the Plumber became the hot topic of the last presidential debate, Joe the Ironworker told me that following an evening entertaining friends, he came to work the next day (for reasons I don't understand, but said he felt fine) and was subjected to his agency's random drug-testing policy — it's required for his title.

Regrettably, he failed the test, and without getting into painful details, he was given these options — resign or get fired. He opted to resign. While I would not argue the merits of his decision to resign, the fact is that despite being a first-time offender and an exemplary worker, his title does not have a progressive-discipline clause. To put it bluntly, it's a one-strike-and-you-are-out policy. I wish I could say it isn't so, Joe, but messing around with six-packs and working in an agency with strict "no tolerance" drinking/drug policies has sobering consequences.

As rhetoric, the phrase "no tolerance" is effectively used to send the strongest message to employees by agency heads. However, I wish I could say I see the same "no tolerance" demonstrated by some agency heads towards managers who are serial violators of Federal equal employment opportunity policies. Perhaps some commissioners see this idea of spreading the opportunity pie around as a socialist idea not to be embraced without some tolerance for a little racism. After all, one gets the sense that for most agencies' heads, "no tolerance" on employment discrimination really means "low tolerance."

Joe the Blowhard

Another point to be lamented is, unlike Joe the Plumber, aka Joe Wurzelbacher, the Toledo unlicensed plumber whose rope-line confrontation with Barack Obama's over the Democratic candidate's tax plan, Joe the Ironworker is a dues-paying union member and contributes to Social Security (something Joe the Plumber is against). Frankly speaking, after reading Joe the Plumber's resume and analyzing him against my agency's Joe the trades workers (the Ironworker, the Carpenter, the Masons, the Electricians and Oiler), I have concluded that Joe the Plumber is a blowhard.

In a recent article, "The Real Plumbers of Ohio", by Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton, Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times, and the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economic Science, pointed out that: 1) the average annual income of "plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters" in Ohio was $47,930; 2) As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000 and, 3) Ohio plumbers have had growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms.

Look, I celebrate individuals like Joe the Plumber wanting to buy a plumbing business netting $250,000 a year. It's noble. However, Joe the Plumber's complaint that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama's tax plan is baseless. Sadly, too many Joes vote against their best interest. The fact is, the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance. And as Mr. Krugman concluded in the article, whatever today's GOP is, it isn't the party of working Americans.

Democrats Help Economy

In his book, "Unequal Democracy," Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels lays out the political business cycles by showing basic evidence for partisan economic differences since World War II. Simply put, the annual economic growth is over a point higher under Democrats than Republicans. Unemployment is more than a point lower. Income growth among poor families is two points higher, among the middle class a point higher, and even among the rich about 0.2 percent higher. And growth is spread more evenly under Democrats too: income inequality stays about the same under Democratic administrations but grows consistently under Republicans. Inflation rates, meanwhile, which conventional wisdom suggests should be a Republican strong point, are about the same no matter who's in power. What's more, none of this is a coincidence. It's not just that Republican Presidents are unlucky. The results stay robust even under a wide range of statistical tests.

Using Bartels' theory, I wonder if one could magically show a diversity model of Democrat and Republican city administrations. What I know is that under Mike the Republican, blacks are sparse in the hierarchy of his administration. More disturbing is that when given the opportunity to add more people of color to his top staff, Mike the Mayor reached back into Giuliani the Excluder's administration or picked more white boys (females also). Let's be honest: witnessing our "independent" Mayor legislatively Bogart term limits to run again made me seriously wonder if his default setting for democracy is autocratic rule. I wish I could say it isn't so, Mike.