Posted on 07/18/2012 4:54:20 AM PDT by Mikey_1962
Perhaps the rain made the teleprompter unreadable. That's one thought I had on pondering Barack Obama's comments to a rain-soaked rally in Roanoke, Va., last Friday.
Perhaps he didn't really mean what he said. Or perhaps -- as is often the case with people when unanchored from a prepared text -- he revealed what he really thinks.
"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back," he began, defending his policy of higher tax rates on high earners. "They know they didn't -- look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, 'well, it must be because I was just so smart.' There are a lot of smart people out there. 'It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.' Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
In other words, Steve Jobs didn't make Apple happen. It was the work of a teacher union member -- er, great teacher -- and the government agencies that paved I-280 and El Camino Real that made Apple happen.
High earners don't deserve the money they make, Obama apparently thinks. It's the gift of government, and they shouldn't begrudge handing more of it back to government.
And that's true, as he told Charlie Gibson of ABC News in 2008, even if those higher tax rates produce less revenue for the government, as has been the case with rate increases on capital gains. The government should take away the money as a matter of "fairness."
The cynical might dismiss Obama's preoccupation with higher tax rates as an instance of a candidate dwelling on one of his few proposals that tests well in the polls. Certainly, he doesn't want to talk much about Obamacare or the stimulus package.
Cynics might note that he spurned supercommittee Republicans' willingness last year to reduce tax deductions so as to actually increase revenue from high earners, without discouraging investment or encouraging tax avoidance as higher tax rates do.
But maybe Obama's Captain-Ahab-like pursuit of higher tax rates just comes from a sense that no one earns success and that there's no connection between effort and reward.
That kind of thinking also helps to explain the approach taken by Sen. Patty Murray in a speech at the Brookings Institution on Monday. She wants a tax rate increase on high earners so badly she said she'd prefer raising everyone's taxes next year to maintaining current rates.
Murray was first elected in 1992 as a state legislator, who had been dismissed by a lobbyist as "just a mom in tennis shoes." But in 20 years she's become an accomplished appropriator and earmarker.
"Do no harm," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told members of Congress at a hearing yesterday, urging them to avoid the sharp spending cuts and tax rate increases scheduled for year's end.
But Murray is threatening to do exactly that kind of harm. Those prattling about how irresponsible Republicans are might want to ponder her threat.
And to consider that Republicans remember what happened to the last Republican who agreed to such rate increases, George H.W. Bush in 1990. Seeking re-election in 1992, he won only 37 percent of the vote. Republicans won't risk that again.
The Obama Democrats seem to believe there's no downside risk in threatening huge tax increases for everyone and in asserting that if you're successful "someone else made that happen."
But the Wall Street Journal's Colleen McCain Nelson reported yesterday how affluent Denver suburbanites have soured on Obama. Obama tied John McCain 49 to 49 percent among voters with more than $100,000 income in 2008, but in NBC/WSJ polls this year, they've favored Mitt Romney 50 to 44 percent.
Affluent voters trended Democratic over two decades on cultural issues. But economic issues dominate this year, and they may not appreciate Obama's assertion that they don't deserve what they've earned.
In Obama’s world, success does come from government because he’s too lazy and stupid to make it on his own.
Government is not the solution; it’s the problem — R Reagan
Powerful
I agree. But unfortunately God needs a little help sometimes to keep them secured from evil.
Much of what has been emerging from Obama’s piehole recently borders on the politically insane. His latest screed was almost incoherent in its “logic” that because some other people built a road or a bridge, you should pay higher taxes. So much for The Greatest Genius Of Our Generation as the Obmamatons would have us believe. Obama can’t think his way out of his Marxist bag.
That’s Obamatons...not Obmamatons
And wherever there is TOTAL government control there is wealth and abundance!
Look at Soviet Russia, Cuba, North Korea, China, East Germany, and all those other place where the Glorious People's revolution has taken control!
Garden Paradises, all of them (WITH free health care!)
Elite Leftists of course always exclude artists & athletes from the “rich” whose wealth must be redistributed. Now why is that?
To those driven by emotions, who view the world in a qualitative instead of quantitative way, artists & athletes have _talent_. They’ve earned their millions because they can do something with great skill/talent. They’ve _earned_ it.
These Leftists look at high-paid white- and blue-collar workers (from CEOs to consultants to big-dollar construction workers etc) as overpaid because they’re not doing anything of particular talent. They have, according to the Left, acquired an unfair income because what they do isn’t appreciably different from what anyone else could step in and do. They’re _lucky_ to have landed a big paycheck for nigh unto menial work. Leftists don’t recognize, much less acknowledge, great talent in occupations which they do not understand.
They’re like children who look at an adult doing a complex task and declare “I can do that!” and are frustrated unto “that’s not fair!” when the adult refuses to let the child perform the dangerous/delicate/risky action and, in consequence, denies the child the reward derived from performing it.
They don’t comprehend that a CEO takes huge responsibility for decisions having great effect on large numbers of people. One simple mistake can destroy millions of dollars and many jobs. The pressure on making such decisions is enormous. The less talented would make such mistakes very soon, if not have a mental breakdown first.
...or that a lawyer who must be able to navigate and understand the bewildering complexity of law, knowing one mistake can cost huge sums or destroy lives. (Odd how most Leftists demanding new laws & regulations have never read any.) A lawyer without talent makes little.
...or an engineer who understands how to convert the surrealism of science into performing complex tasks. Again, one mistake can be very expensive. As a software engineer I must manipulate millions of 1s and 0s, arranging them with abstract tools into intricate incantations to extract medical information from biological samples via exotic measurement processes. As a cyborg my very life depends on a heart-controlling computer running perfectly for decades.
...or an entrepreneur who expends great personal effort, time, money, etc. to organize existing parts (products & services) to create some new whole which is worth much more than the sum of the parts, and has substantial risk of the whole endeavor becoming a huge waste which nobody will share in the failure of - but everyone wants part of the profits if it succeeds. Takes _talent_ to pull all those disparate factors into a self-perpetuating business.
...but for some reason, Leftists do not see these examples as worthy of profit. If a great artist puts cheap paint on a cheap canvas and sells it for millions, they think that’s fair ... but if a great programmer arranges cheap bits on a cheap computer and sells the program for millions, they think his profit is “unfair” and must be distributed among anyone who had any conceivable involvement no matter how paltry or fairly paid.
Naturally, many business owners will be angered at Obama’s words.
Perhaps the real tragedy here is that the hundreds of thousands of young people who would desire to one day own their own businesses are no doubt thinking “why bother?”
Why bother indeed when you’ll just be maligned, insulted, and targeted as the declared enemy of the state.
This guy is attempting to kill the American dream.
He doesn’t have the brainpower to follow anything to its logical conclusion.
Your post is one of the reasons I love freerepublic. You are worthy of my great respect as a rational, and well educated thinker. I am also a software engineer, and have code running on many medical instruments.
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