The New York Post reports today that Barack Obama enthusiastically supports punishing the most productive members of society in order to put capital to less efficient uses. Put more simply, he wants to take money from the "rich" and give it to the "poor."
Obama's economic plan will raise taxes for those making more than $250,000, which prompted Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber, to confront Our Holy Savior at a recent campaign event in Ohio.
"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the blue-collar worker asked.
After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: "I've worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama told him. "I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too.
[...]
"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Hear that? Socialism! Good for everybody!
Whether Obama "wants" to punish success or not is completely irrelevant -- because that's exactly what taxes do. And when they specifically target those who tend to create the jobs, they simultaneously limit the incentive to do just that. Which makes me think Obama's huffing on more than just those cancer sticks if he actually thinks this statement makes sense:
My plan isn't intended to force small businesses to cut jobs to pay higher taxes so we can "spread the wealth around." My plan is intended to create jobs and increase the wealth of all Americans.
There's only one thing that's ever proven effective at increasing people's wealth, and it's not socialism. It's capitalism, and laissez-faire capitalism at that. Personally, I'm a market anarchist, whereby I advocate complete abolition of the state, but Obama's policy would approach complete abolition of the market.
My buddy Andy Roth, director of government affairs at the Club for Growth, was quoted in this article and strikes at the root of Obama's tax plan.
"It's clear that his main goal is redistribution of wealth, not growth," said Andy Roth with the anti-tax group Club for Growth. "He's perfectly happy to destroy wealth as long as he can redistribute it."
Obama's tax plans are not only criminal, they run counter to the laws of economics and human action. Free of government intervention, individuals will put their capital to its most productive uses, which creates wealth and jobs. On the other hand, confiscating money from its rightful owners, to instead be used how the state sees fit, discourages people from making more of it and therefore costs jobs.
Barack Obama hardly wants to increase the wealth of all Americans. He wants to steal money from the most productive and use it to buy the votes of everyone else farther down the economic ladder.
From where I sit that's theft, plain and simple, and in a just society he would be incarcerated for such acts, not rewarded with the most powerful office in the country.
Contact Trevor at bothwelltj-at-yahoo-dot-com.
Comments
You call the rich the most productive members of society? Hardly. Most of what they have they stole. Look at the bank CEOs walking away with millions while taxpayers have to support their bankrupt banks. Their attitude is "I got mine, screw you". Contrary to popular belief, we do not have a free market. The market is rigged in favor of corporations and the wealthy who buy off our politicians.
Sounds like Robin in the Hood to me.
You call the rich the most productive members of society? Hardly. Most of what they have they stole. Look at the bank CEOs walking away with millions while taxpayers have to support their bankrupt banks. Their attitude is "I got mine, screw you". Contrary to popular belief, we do not have a free market. The market is rigged in favor of corporations and the wealthy who buy off our politicians.
O'Bama is a socialist. Everyone he associates with are either socialists or communists. William Ayres and ACORN are two examples.
His plan is exactly what thi sarticle states; take money from people who work hard and give it to lazy people who don't want to work.
Jim-
The people who provide the vast majority of jobs in this country are not the gazillionaire corporate-fascist bankers, oilmen, and automaker CEOs.
Instead, they're the millions of small-business owners across the country who make between 200-500k if they're lucky, pay most of the federal and state taxes, pay the health benefits of their employees, pay for public schools they probably don't even use, and still get vilified as the "rich."
And they're the very same ones who will be cutting employees to avoid producing enough to reach Owe-Bama's magic mark of 250k/yr.
It's your responsibility to feed yourself. Not the gummint's, and certainly not mine.
Man, you really are a moron. Raising taxes isn't theft. It's a way to pay for getting your garbage collected, and salaries for soldiers.
Take your medication.
Sticks and stones, Scottie. Sticks and stones.
I never realized it was the feds' responsibility to collect my trash. And by the way, I take mine to the dump myself.
Taxes - especially income and property taxes - are straight-up theft. What else could you possibly call it when the State assumes ownership of your income and decides how much it will leave you with? When you're charged money to live on land you supposedly own?
If someone - anyone - takes property I don't want them to have, and which most certainly doesn't belong to them, it's THEFT.
Thanks for playing.
It's not called theft, it's called progressive taxation. I learned in grade school in the 1950's that it was a good and fair thing. I still think so.
It's simple. Human nature demands that enterprise be rewarded. Enterprise, by nature, is pushing a rock up a hill. Where philosophies differ is what the grade of the hill should be.
Progressives believe that the hill should be steeper the higher you go. It should be easy for anyone willing to push to get to the nice park halfway up. There's a luxury resort at the summit, but the road up there is a whole lot steeper.
Libertarians seem to think the slope of the road should be constant all the way to the top. The trouble with that is that it results in the road to the nice park being so steep that too many people can't even make it that far. Don't you CARE?
And Republicans have rigged the system so that the steep road is at the beginning and just one mile past the park it levels off. THAT's where the robbery comes in.
The US had a period closer to what you seem to want as "a market anarchist, whereby [you] advocate complete abolition of the state" -- the period from 1880 to 1890 or so. While there was some massive development, the excesses (and the crash of 1893) lead to a swing to left or "progressive" side.
History -- and examples from around the world -- show that a complete absence of state involvement in the market is bad for the market (monopolies distort the efficient transmission of information about prices, etc), and produces a society which cannot compete with countries where the state takes a moderately active role.
The profit motive is not always sufficiently focused on the long term; companies may be rewarded greatly for maximizing shareholder value in the short term while harming it in the long term. The recent housing / mortgage / financials bubble is an example of the above. Even well-behaved actors may not escape unscathed, as they may become targets for (hostile or otherwise) takeover.
Conversely, excessive involvement of the state is clearly inefficient. Like it or not, neither extreme is optimal.
In this case, it's plausible to argue that everyone in America benefits from a society where the path upwards is wide open (but the path gets harder the higher you climb); and the middle class is healthy. Obama's tax proposals may or may not accomplish that -- but that's clearly the line he's arguing.
Obama hasn't argued for the nationalization of key industries (other than the bailout bill, which is arguable a bit more complex); and he doesn't argue for collective ownership of the means of production. It seems obvious that he's not a Socialist; Progressive seems a more accurate description.
I can't understand why no one just puts it simply... take two cases... someone earning 80 grand and someone earning a few million. Which one has capital to create jobs? If you tax someone with capital to create jobs here, you have less jobs. If you tax someone with less capital a lower amount... you just support cheap imports from China, and have less jobs here and more jobs there. Shouldn't you have regressive taxation?
Trevor, you need to read just one more book to understand how unbridled capitalism, encourage by neo-con conservatives like you, has affected the world:
Naomi Kline's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."
Then come back and tell us, if you dare, why progressive taxation and regulated capitalism are evil.
Betcha can't do it.
This is NOT news.
If you make more than $250,000 he will increase your taxes. If you make less he won't. Obama has been saying this since the beginning of the campaign. But now that he said the words "spread" and "wealth" in a sentence, sensationalist journalists are pouncing all over it.
It's called taxation people and this is how it's always worked. I have a small business and like many small business owners I am not worried about this. Although I have had years where I've made more than $250,000 I have NEVER had a year where my net exceeded $250,000 and that's where the taxing begins. Business owners know that they can control their net by paying for health care, benefits or hiring more employees.
This is not some new socialist agenda. It's simply a re-balancing of the tax codes to pre-Bush levels.
This is NOT news.
If you make more than $250,000 he will increase your taxes. If you make less he won't. Obama has been saying this since the beginning of the campaign. But now that he said the words "spread" and "wealth" in a sentence, sensationalist journalists are pouncing all over it.
It's called taxation people and this is how it's always worked. I have a small business and like many small business owners I am not worried about this. Although I have had years where I've made more than $250,000 I have NEVER had a year where my net exceeded $250,000 and that's where the taxing begins. Business owners know that they can control their net by paying for health care, benefits or hiring more employees.
This is not some new socialist agenda. It's simply a re-balancing of the tax codes to pre-Bush levels.
Although I don't expect everyone to agree with Democratic policies and core beliefs (indeed, that sort of disagreement is a fundamental strength of this great country), it is disheartening to hear of people expressing terror at the prospect of an Obama presidency, that such a move amounts to socialism on an unprecedented scale, and that it will mean the end of the United States of America. For a nation that takes such pride in the strength and scope of its educational system (notwithstanding that system's shortcomings), it's amazing how uneducated so much of its citizens are.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Although I don't expect everyone to agree with Democratic policies and core beliefs (indeed, that sort of disagreement is a fundamental strength of this great country), it is disheartening to hear of people expressing terror at the prospect of an Obama presidency, that such a move amounts to socialism on an unprecedented scale, and that it will mean the end of the United States of America. For a nation that takes such pride in the strength and scope of its educational system (notwithstanding that system's shortcomings), it's amazing how uneducated so much of its citizens are.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
I told you so. You have seen nothing yet. I can't wait until all the soccer moms have to give it up so some poor person who wouldn't work if you gave them a job gets a nice healthy chunk of your income. Your money is reduced and they get a nice fat healthy pay raise they didn't earn. The fact is he will take from you and give it to people who haven't earned it. Remember what I said this day...
first of all the title of this article suck.OBAMA is no thief you ignorant cracker.All the republican KKK members are the theives. Check them out you moron
learn to provide a decent title you prick.
By the way, isn't spreading around the wealth by reducing a tax on 95% of the people, increasing tax on small companies who's income is reported on the owners personal tax income and when over 40% of people do not pay taxes, a form of welfare.
Of course Obama is a thief. He believes in income re-distribution so that the non-taxpaying, non-performing members of society can leach off the producers.
The good thing is that he will be a very weak president.
"laissez-faire capitalism" "market anarchist" == BULLS%&T.
1 - The plumber who works hard to make $250k/year is not going to pay more in taxes if he hires a tax accountant.
2 - Folks like Trevor claim to love the free market, until they get hurt; then a bailout is "patriotic"
3 - Corporations exist, and are treated as "persons" under the law, ONLY because governments pass the laws to allow them to exist. When corporations fail only the corporate assets are at risk; without laws allowing corporations to exist they'd all be partnerships. Imagine thousands of Lehman Bros. partners (no shareholders) being held liable for the Lehman Bros. debt. Each partners full assets would be at risk.
4 - "laissez-faire capitalism" - results in slave labor, child labor, pollution, etc. Capitalism has no morals, except what society forces on it by law.
5 – True "laissez-faire capitalism" cannot exist once you get past individual producers and sellers, and past barter.
6 - It is a absurd to claim that the most productive members of society are the best paid. Look at the CEOs who lay off thousands, produce inferior products, and drive companies into the ground, all the while making out like bandits. Look at the insane salaries paid to hundreds of professional athletes and actors. These are not particularly productive people, they add little of real value to our world, but they play in a game where the rules are warped to reward those with certain “skills”. They may only be “productive” as that term is used by Economists (the Dismal Science).
You sure got me on that one, 'OldMan.' Howzabout taking a look through any of my previous writings and finding anything suggesting I think federal welfare spending is "patriotic."
CEOs have the right to provide inferior products and drive their companies into the ground; the State has no right to prevent it via coercion.
Spoken like a true statist! I trust you'll have no problem if I send you my tax bills every year? You know, since you love them so much.
Up to this point in time, the mainstream media has treated Sen. Obama like the "Teflon Don."
Sen. McCain should challenge Sen. Obama on his poor judgment in choosing business associates, eg; Bill Ayers who is an unrepentant home grown U.S. terrorist, the Acorn group, former Fanny Mae CEO Franklin Raines and his social mentor, Rev. Wright whose anti-US philosophy was ingrained into Sen. Obama's head during his adult life! Sen. Obama admited on tape that he listened to Rev. Wright's sermons while in law school. Give me a break! Are the American voters so dumb that they can't put 2 and 2 together and come up with 4?? Sen. Obama is, if elected, going to turn the American Democracy into a Social Welfare Autocracy.
Sen. Obama is a very well poised and intelligent liar! All gullible American voters, please stand up!
Sen. McCain needs to contact Rudy Guilliani and ask him to be his Attorney General to prosecute for malfeasance the fraudulant CEO's of the Wall Street firms, Congressional Black Caucus who pushed back on more regulatory guidelines for Fannie and Freddie, and Bush Admin. officials who failed to alert the American taxpayers about the impending mortgage and banking crisis.
AmericanVoice
Utah
anbudanrc2010 said " first of all the title of this article suck.OBAMA is no thief you ignorant cracker.All the republican KKK members are the theives. Check them out you moron
October 15, 2:23 PM"
First of all you ignorant moron, it was a REPUBLICAN President A. Lincoln that initiated freedom of slaves. Blacks voted REPUBLICAN for a long time afterwards. It was the Democrats that wanted to keep slavery. Idiot democrat LBJ's Great (Socialist) Society came along to eliminate poverty... and what do we have now?
Of course we all know that socialism is only for the wealthy. The fascist regime in power has stood watch over the greatest redistribution of wealth in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the wealth was stolen from the middle class and handed over to the wealthy.
Old man: your points are only correct at first glance. Sorry.
1. Wrong. He's not going to pay more if he hires bookkeepers like they use in Chicago's families. But there are more ways than you know to cause hurt for small business owners.
2. If that were true, then it wouldn't be staunch free market advocates like Newt Gingrich saying, "kill the bailout, let the companies burn."
3. There is no reason why corporations can't exist without government sanction. Partnerships can offer people limited forms of partnership that grant rights to profits, and a vote once a year on policy. The only requirement is a third party adjudicator to uphold the contract.
4. Capitalism tends to do all those horrible things with the sanction of government. Indeed because government coerces it. Socialism also uses slave labor. The difference is that there's no competition in the country for the market to switch to if people's consciences decide they don't want to support the child-labor using State. On the contrary, during Apartheid, it was the mining companies who wanted to hire Black Africans, and the Unions and government that didn't want them to. It's not capitalism, but Statism that keeps women from working in the Middle East. So, wrong again.
5. Not true. Capitalism existed in a lot of places. All that is required is a commonly-agreed upon unit of exchange. Cowry shells will work.
6. It is more absurd to claim that you know what the appropriate level of pay is for someone other than yourself. Put it this way. Progressives complain that a CEO makes 1,000 times what a janitor does. Fine. Take 1,000 janitors, put them in the CEO's office and see if they can pull off his job without direction, training or supervision. Can the CEO do what the 1,000 janitor's do? No. But he can find 1,000 other people who can.
@Chris:
I can't understand why no one just puts it simply....
I think it has been put simply, it's just that some people don't get simple concepts.
If you give middle class people more money to buy things with, people who make things will create more jobs, capital gains tax or not. Create the potential for demand, and you create an equal potential for supply. The reverse is not true.
By the way, isn't spreading around the wealth by reducing a tax on 95% of the people, increasing tax on small companies who's income is reported on the owners personal tax income and when over 40% of people do not pay taxes, a form of welfare.
This country has ridden an enormous wave of success on the back of the American worker. Guess what? The American worker is tapped out. He's broke. His credit cards are maxed. His home values are declining. He doesn't have any more money to spend. Money is scarce for the American worker, even though he is employed and is one of the most productive workers in the world. As a result of the American worker being broke, businesses bottom lines are suffering because the demand for their products and services isn't there. Unless we can figure out how to get more money into the American worker's pockets, everyone, businesses included, is going to suffer. We can start by taxing the American worker less. With more money to spend, he's bound to spend more, thus helping businesses. With more demand from the American worker for products and services, businesses will be able to create more jobs and sell more products and services. But without the American worker being able to spend more money, businesses won't have the demand and resulting revenues necessary to create more jobs and their products and services won't be selling. Unfortunately, simply taxing the American worker less won't fully solve our problems.
A large part of the problem, namely that the American worker is tapped out, is largely caused by the tremendous hoarding of assets by the nation's most wealthy. We're not talking saving for a rainy day or for kids educations. We're talking about serious, piles of money hoarding. In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth. I'm sure its even worse now. This hoarding of assets by the nation's top 10% creates a tremendous scarcity of money for the remaining 90%. Unless the top 10% reduces its hoards of money in a way that gets money back to the American Worker, the scarcity of money for 90% of the country will remain. If the scarcity of money for 90% of the country remains, business, our economy, and our people will suffer terribly as a result of reduced demand.
I see two options to accomplish this ... 1) get the top 10% and in particular the top 1% to start spending and giving on a massive scale; or 2) tax the top 10% and in particular the top 1% at higher rates and spend the money in a way that spreads it around.
So "OBONGO" is going to punish Joe "THE PLUMBER" for busting his butt for 10-12 hours a day 7 days a week for a successful business, and REDISTRIBUTE some of his hard earned cash to Shanequa and her 11 kids.Maybe they can pay for Shanequa to go to college and get some bling-bling.
Your first two sentences seem to assume that the richest members of society are the most productive. Why on earth should we assume that? Perhaps that would tend to be true in a freed market, but in a system like the one we live under -- a system of government-granted privilege to the corporate elite -- it seems extraordinarily unlikely to be true. (I'm not defending Obama's tax plan, just grumping about the apparent conflation of corporatism with freed markets.)
FACT: Obama promised not to raise taxes of ANY kind on any family that makes less than $250k. But two weeks after his inauguration he raised taxes by 62 cents a pack on the nation’s 43 million smokers.
To see the proof, go to Google and type “obama dover sep” and you’ll see a YouTube video of Obama making this no-tax pledge while speaking in Dover, NH on Sep 12th. Obama is a liar and he keeps on lying. ALL of his plans for healthcare, cap-and-trade, and everything else will significantly increase our taxes and costs for all sorts of goods and services. Just say “NO” to Obama’s socialist agenda.
obama is a rabid dog with no class or brain.
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