John, the only way Joe the Plumber made $250,000 last year

[soupkitchen]

Is if had an exclusive contract to do the all the plumbing work at your eight houses.

Now, that is a line I would have liked to hear.

[frickaline]

1. I think he was talking about the business making those profits

not himself personally. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but that was how I understood it.

[kirby]

2. Funny sig line...

I like it!

[frickaline]

3. Thx I love yours too

I can almost hear the yodel music playing as the mountain climber goes "over the hill" ... oooh noes John, does that look familiar?

[matt819]

4. This is probably a bit simplistic

Okay, let's say Joe is on his own. If he were to work 40 hours a week for every week of the year and charge $100 per hour for his services, he would gross $208,000. That's his labor, and it is excessive.

Even as a sole proprietor with himself as his only employee, he's still probably selling stuff - pipes and related stuff. Let's say he sells another $208,000 of this stuff with a 20% margin.

Now we start taking stuff off that gross figure of $416,000.

Right off the top, since he has a 20% margin on the supplies, his costs for these items would be $166,400, so we're now down to just under $250,000.

Then he deducts the following:
Disposables (gloves, lubricants, odds and ends)
Gas (mileage)
Advertising (yellow pages, little league team sponsorship)
Tools
Depreciation
Interest (on any loan repayments)
Insurance premiums (liability, etc.)
Phone
Office rent (or portion of home used as office)

You get the idea. All of a sudden, we're well under $200,000. And then if we allow Joe a 2-week vacation, assume that he doesn't do paid work for 40 hours a week, or doesn't charge $100 per hour, then we can pretty much take off another $50,000.

And even if Joe is a small business, that is, he has a staff - someone who answers the phones, another couple of plumbers, multiple custom plumbing vehicles/equipment - then you can ramp-up these numbers, but, in the end, Joe, as an individual, will almost certainly be in the same middle class category, with personal income of under $250,000.

Sorry, Joe. You may want to be in the same league as your father, and you may aspire to be one of the wealthy for whom a reduction in capital gains tax actually means something. But the reality is that, like many of us, you are solidly in the middle class, watching every penny, and you will lose if you vote for McCain.