FOD 2011.11.07

I've posted before about the propensity of obama and his political allies to insist that the rich pay their fair share. Much of the debate about this revolves around the question "what exactly is their fair share?"

While that is a valid question certainly deserving an answer, it obscures a couple of more basic, and potentially more troubling, points: the use of 'the politics of division' as the engine which drives obama's re-election campaign; and the 'tax the rich' cry as a distraction from the real issue - cutting the size and scope of government.

Richard M. Salsman, writing for Forbes, offers an interesting perspective on the class warfare issue. As he points out, substitute any other group -- racial, ethnic, gender (or gender-bending), even a social grouping such as lower-income -- and the backlash against such demonization would be loud, vociferous, and immediate. Yet bias against those who are successful is not only tolerated but encouraged by the socialist-in-chief and his ilk.

Envy of the rich is the last popularly accepted prejudice in America. With the current U.S. president leading the charge, the envy shows no signs of abating anytime soon. The bigots among the 99% of people who seek to control or destroy the top 1% of U.S. income-earners and wealth-owners are targeting a minority and treating its members as inferior citizens devoid of full rights, not based on skin color, gender, or religion, but because the minority displays superlative productive power.

The viciousness of the anti-wealth bigots contributes heavily to expanding the size and scope of government and piling more tax burdens on the 1% minority.  Instead of scaling back spending and regulations, politicians and pundits today prefer to re-jigger the tax code yet again, so as to deflect attention away from the size of Leviathan to the means by which it is financed. Instead of slaying Leviathan, they merely seek ways of feeding him more “optimally.”

The top 1% of U.S. income-earners ($380,354+) generate 20% of all personal income yet pay 38% of all federal income taxes, while the top 10% ($113,799+) earn 46% of income and pay 70% of all such taxes. The other 90% of tax filers, who make 54% of personal income, pay only 30% of federal income taxes. The disproportion is even worse for the lower 50% of all federal tax filers (those making $33,048 or less), for while they earn 13% of all income, they pay just 3% of all federal income taxes. Meanwhile 47% of U.S. households (and most of those that make less than $40,000 p.a.) pay no federal income taxes (double the rate of 1980). The inequity is worse if you measure the net effect of taxes paid and subsidies received.

Our present-day Redistributionist-in-Chief frequently denies that he’s engaged in class warfare. Indeed, while discussing the alleged need for higher taxes last month he insisted “this is not class warfare – it’s math.” But Obama fails even on the math. It’s quite apparent that he doesn’t really care about promoting American prosperity, because he believes that wealth can be multiplied by dividing it.  Not so, sir.  Division isn’t multiplication.

Since the U.S. federal income tax was first adopted in 1913, marginal tax rates on the top 1% of income earners have ranged from a low of 7% (initially) to a high of 94% (during WWII), and have averaged 61% for the past century. Thus the principle for much of the past century has been that the rich in American do not have a right to even half their earned income. Yet the person who can’t keep the bulk of the fruits of his labor is nothing but a slave.

 Now contrast the 'rich are evil' perspective with what Ronald Reagan said in a 1982 speech.

Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes —one rich, one poor — both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare?  Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?

"Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?" Since obama was elected ,,, no, wait, scratch that ... it goes all the way back to FDR, who, not coincidentally, is obama's hero.

At a (July 2011) Presidential Town Hall Meeting at the University of Maryland, Obama described FDR as being fiscally conservative.

SAY WHAT?!?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented the New Deal and many other social programs.  Ignoring the Constitutional and Bill of Rights limitations of the role of the federal government, Roosevelt’s administration resulted in the largest expansion of the federal government and government expenditures at the time.

Now Obama is calling FDR a fiscal conservative and using him as his model.  And holding true to his hero, Obama has also rapidly expanded the federal government in size, power and spending.  Health care, financial reform and the federal bail out has resulted in the largest two year increase in the federal government and its budget, surpassing his hero FDR.

How did FDR pay for his increase in government?  He raised taxes on income and businesses.  How does Obama want to pay for his massive deficit?  Raise taxes on income and businesses.

There is no doubt that Obama is doing his best to follow in the footsteps of his hero.

If he succeeds, God help us all...