Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber
to come and fix it.

Joe drives to Obama's house, which is located in a very exclusive neighborhood
where all the residents make more than $250,000 per year. Joe
arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room
that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem
and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it's an easy
repair that will take less than 10 minutes.

Obama asks Joe how much it will cost. Joe immediately says, "$9,500."
"$9,500?" Obama asks, stunned, "But you said it's an easy
repair! "Yes, but what I do is charge those who make $250,000
per year a much higher amount so I can fix the plumbing of poorer
people for free," explains Joe. "It's always been my
philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government who
passed this philosophy into law. Now all plumbers do business
this way. It's known as 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act of 2014.' Surprised
you haven't heard of it."

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there's no way he's paying that much for a
small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves. Obama spends the next hour
flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he
finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of
business. Not wanting to pay Joe's price, Obama does nothing and the
leak goes unrepaired for several days.

A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under
the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every
hour, and there's a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls
Joe and pleads with him to return.

Joe tells Obama that he can set up an appointment in about 6 months from now
because he has so many people getting their plumbing work done for
FREE. "The demand for plumbing work for those who get it for
free is skyrocketing!!! There's a long waiting list of those
who need repairs. "Let's see - this repair will cost you about
$21,000 now."

"What!!! A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!" Obama quickly fires
back. Joe explains,

"Well, because of the 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act,' a lot of rich people have
hired their own "personal plumbers" to fix their plumbing, so there
are fewer payers. As a result, the rate I have to charge my
wealthy paying customers keeps rising. This has put a lot of
my fellow plumbers out of business, and they're not being replaced -
nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they
won't make any money. I'm hurting too - all thanks to greedy rich
people like you who won't pay their fair
share."


"Joe! This could be bad. If all the rich people have their own plumbers and you
can't charge the poorer people, you'll go broke. What will you
do then?"


Joe immediately replies, "Run for president!"

Good one!

Ditto,