'Joe the plumber' faces scrutiny

He is unlicensed, owes back taxes

Joe Wurzelbacher was a key player in the debate.

Joe the plumber's 15 minutes of fame took a sour turn yesterday.

The star of Wednesday night's presidential debate, Joe Wurzelbacher, appeared on several national TV news shows and both campaigns kept mentioning him. But it was reported that he doesn't have a plumber's license and owes back taxes to the state of Ohio.

Wurzelbacher confronted Democrat Barack Obama over his tax policy during a campaign stop on Sunday in Ohio, so during the debate Republican John McCain repeatedly referred to him to go after Obama on taxes and healthcare.

"The real winner last night was Joe the plumber. Joe's the man," McCain said, giving a thumbs-up at his first post-debate campaign rally yesterday in Pennsylvania.

He said on Fox News Channel yesterday that he and Wurzelbacher were probably "going to be spending some time together" on the campaign trail.

And last night, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad featuring Wurzelbacher to criticize Obama on taxes.

While he won't say whom he will vote for, Wurzelbacher voted in the Republican primary.

He is critical of Obama's plan to end the income tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year, saying it would stifle his dream to buy a plumbing company.

"Just because you work a little harder, to have more money taken from you - that's scary," Wurzelbacher said on ABC's "Good Morning America" yesterday. "Why should they be penalized for being successful? . . . Obama wants to take that basic right and penalize me for it. That's a very socialistic view."

But Obama and his running mate, Senator Joe Biden, yesterday questioned the plumber's working-class cred.

"How many plumbers do you know making a quarter-of-a-million dollars a year?" Obama asked supporters in New Hampshire.

The plumbers' union, which says it was the first union to back Obama, also criticized what it called McCain's "manufactured outrage on behalf of Joe."

It would be "a lot more believable if his economic plan had anything to do with helping working people deal with the economic crisis," Steve Kelly, assistant general president of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, said in a statement. "Instead, it washes the middle class down the drain."

The Associated Press reported that Wurzelbacher doesn't have a plumbing license and doesn't need one because he works for someone else, a small company that does residential work.

But the county Wurzelbacher and his employer live in, Lucas County, requires plumbers to have licenses, and neither Wurzelbacher nor his employer is licensed there, the Associated Press reported.

And Bloomberg News reported that Wurzelbacher owes the state of Ohio almost $1,200 in back income taxes.

Before those news reports, Wurzelbacher, 34, said he was feeling overwhelmed by the sudden attention.

"I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it," he told reporters gathered outside his home near Toledo. "I just hope I'm not making too much of a fool of myself."