Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, of “Joe the Plumber” fame, thinks that our progressive tax system is “incredibly wrong.” Diane Sawyer asked Joe if even the ultra rich, those making millions each year, should pay at a higher rate. Joe said, “Well, I mean, quite honestly, why should they be penalized for being successful? It’s wrong. I mean, because you’re successful, you have to pay more than everybody else?”

It’s fair to wonder if, before he plunged himself into the spotlight, Joe had educated himself very much about tax policy, or the history of tax policy. John McCain realizes that there are a lot of misinformed and resentful Joes, and, he seems to think it’s to his political advantage to get voters to identify and agree with Wurzelbacher’s thinking. McCain’s new ad shows a variety of such people each proclaiming, “I am Joe the Plumber.” Shown here:

In his radio address Saturday, McCain said, “Obama believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism, and a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines. In the best case, spreading the wealth around is a familiar idea from the American left.”

Maybe Wurzelbacher hasn’t thought much about our progressive tax system, but McCain certainly has. McCain is on record, prior to this election, supporting the notion that higher incomes should be taxed at higher rates. McCain famously opposed the Bush tax cuts — because he said Bush’s tax cuts overly favored the wealthy.

The whole idea behind the 16th Amendment was to “soak the rich.” In 1913, in the face of incredible wealth disparity, Americans were looking for a way to bring about greater fairness in their society. It’s not easy to amend the Constitution, but, there were plenty of Joes in 1913 that were all in favor of such an idea and I imagine that Wurzelbacher had a great-grandfather or two who were strong advocates of the 16th Amendment. In October, 1913, Congress passed a new income tax law with rates beginning at 1 percent and rising to 7 percent for taxpayers with income in excess of $500,000. Less than 1 percent of the population paid income tax at the time.

It is likely that Wurzelbacher doesn’t really understand what socialism is, but McCain has no excuse to throw the term around so inaccurately. Empowering the government to buy banks — via a zillion dollar wall street bailout plan — as McCain has done, might be evidence of encroaching socialism. But increasing the top personal income tax rate by 3% is not. McCain seems determined to win the White House at any cost and he seems to have concluded that his only avenue to victory is by stirring up class resentment. McCain seems to want to fan hatred toward welfare and welfare recipients.

Republicans have always made political hay by stirring up resentment about welfare. Reagan had his entertaining made-up stories about “welfare queens,” about welfare excesses that never, in fact, existed. McCain does Reagan one better by producing Joe, a real person, but with a bogus narrative, one that doesn’t fit his own life’s story. Joe, remember, started his whole discussion with Obama with a couple of whopper lies. We all now know that 1) Joe is not a licensed plumber 2) He is nowhere close to making $250,000 thereby qualifying for a tax increase and 3) He will benefit more from Obama’s plan, than from McCain’s plan.

A careful look at Wurzelbacher’s situation, I’m guessing, would probably show that Joe has greatly benefited from a system of progressive taxation, by a system that has provided an economic safety net. Joe, as a typical working person, probably has someone in his family who has received much more in Social Security benefits than what they ever paid into the system. He might have a granny whose nursing home care is being provided by Medicaid; he likely has a cousin or more who has benefited from food stamps. What Joe, no doubt, hates — for those he thinks doesn’t deserve it, anyway — is welfare.

Joe puts up a big front that he doesn’t believe that the government should be involved in giving economic assistance to citizens in need, but if he or someone in his family was in need, I imagine he would be glad to get government help.

I develop more ideas on the topic here: Shouldn’t How To Increase Wealth, How To Fairly Distribute Wealth, Be At The Center Of Our Political Debate?

Here are what comedians as saying about Joe the Plumber: