Scott Johnson: A Call To ‘Spread The Wealth’ Around Is An Old – And Dangerous – Theme.
When Barack Obama responded to the Ohio plumber who didn’t want his taxes raised by saying that he wanted to “spread the wealth around,” I wanted to tell the Illinois senator to spread his own wealth around.
Senator Obama, in a rare moment of candor, all but told “Joe the plumber” that his wealth should be seized in the name of equity. Their personal encounter this past Sunday played out one of the old themes of democratic politics: the appeal to the many to take from the few. It’s traditionally an easy sell in democratic regimes.
Despite Obama’s implication to the contrary, however, it doesn’t represent much in the way of change.
The personal income tax, the federal government’s main source of revenue, is collected overwhelmingly from a relative handful of Americans. Indeed, the most recent IRS data shows that the top 1 percent of filers paid nearly 40 percent of all income taxes. That means the top 1 percent paid about the same as the bottom 95 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. The bottom 50 percent paid just 3 percent.
Given that poorer citizens always outnumber the rich, political philosophers have long worried that government based on majority rule could lead to organized theft from the wealthy by the democratic masses. “If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city,” Aristotle warned.
The Founders of the United States shared Aristotle’s worry. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be, as James Madison put it, “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Madison and others therefore made it a “first object of government” to protect personal property from unjust confiscation.
Neal Boortz, from 2004, on the democrats’ favorite pasttime: Class Warfare - The Evil Rich and The Glorious Poor.
The Democratic leaders have been going through their playbook and have decided that class warfare is the way to go. Take advantage of the open sewer of economic ignorance that flows through America’s consciousness (thanks to generations of government education) and cast this as a grand battle between the evil rich and the glorious poor.
Does class warfare work? Does a hog love slop? There is an underlying current of animosity – even hatred – for those who are perceived as being rich that is far more intense than you might expect.
The left has mastered the dark art of conducting a class-warfare campaign. First and foremost, you must dispel any notion that those who are rich actually got that way through hard work. Americans at all income levels admire hard work and almost universally believe that those who work hard should be rewarded. To make the class-warfare efforts bear fruit, the left must convince the middle- and lower-income Americans that they are the only ones who are really working for their income.
This is why you constantly hear Democrats refer to lower- and middle-income earners as “working people” or “working families.” The unspoken premise here is that if you are in the upper-income levels, you don’t work. You’re not one of the “working people.” To the class warrior, the only true work is work that is done with muscle. Working with your brain isn’t work…
After the class warriors have convinced the middle- and lower-income groups that they are the only ones actually working for their money, their next step is to show them that those horrible Republican tax cuts will actually take money out of their pockets.
In a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution column in opposition to the Bush economic plan, Dean Baker wrote “Bush wants to take $650 billion from the public and give the bulk of it to the richest 1 percent of the country.” Note, please, the two key words there: “Take” and “give.” The Republicans want to “take” your money and “give” it to the rich.
Here’s where that inconceivable economic ignorance nurtured by our government schools comes into play. A tax cut is a cut in tax rates. When payday arrives, the employer takes less money out of the worker’s check for federal taxes. No money is being taken from anyone. The money is simply staying in the pocket of the person who earned it…
There is some indication that people are actually tiring of the Democrat’s class-warfare tactics. After all, don’t most people hope to become rich one day too? And when they do reach those rarified income levels, wouldn’t they like to keep as much of the money they work for as they can?
Well … not to worry. If the class-warfare thing doesn’t work, there’s always race.
Audio: (2001) Obama Discusses the Best Strategies for “Redistributing Wealth”