Obama's Economic Justice

President Obama gave a campaign speech last night, also known as the State of the Union.  What I heard was a lot of his usual class warfare.  I read in numerous media outlets today how he was pushing an agenda of wealth fairness and economic justice.  Don't let the language confuse you from the meaning.  Economic justice is a clever way to express support for socialism.

President Obama scoffs at his opponents who dare claim he supports socialism for America or that he is himself a socialist.  He dismisses observations that his policies are socialistic by attacking the observers as crazy, fringe loonies that can't be taken seriously.  Notice that he really doesn't defend the actions or policies themselves.  He can't.  If it looks like socialism, walks like socialism, and quacks like socialism then it is socialism.  Recall his rare slip up when he said, "we need to spread the wealth around?"

Ever since he has been in office Obama has fanned the flames of class warfare, even more so as the economy keeps slipping into deeper recession.  It is sad and outrageous at the same time.  Instead of proposing pro-growth policies he attacks the "wealthy" for not paying their fair share.  Is this edifying and useful to our condition? Of course not.  It is beneath the Presidency to stir citizens to hate their wealthy neighbor.  This does not create jobs or improve the economy.

Forget about what is "fair."  That word has been so abused that it has no meaning anymore. Really. If we were to have a tax code that required a "fair share" we all would be paying the same rate.  That would be "fair" and it would be just!  The more you made the more you would pay in real dollars (this is modeled by the biblical "tithe" where all believers provide a 10%  offering).  As it is now, we have a progressive tax code that requires you to pay more (i.e., at a higher rate) than your fair share the more you make.  Progressive is a very good label as it is the progressives / socialists that want the so-called rich to pay more than their fair share.

So what we have is the evil top 1% paying about 50% of the tab for all the rest of us.  Yet Obama wants them to pay more in the name of "fairness."  Recall Margaret Thatcher pointed out that "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

My final comments on Obama's State of the Union is his great concern for what Warren Buffet and his secretary pay in federal taxes.  He repeated Buffet's declaration from some months ago that he didn't think it was right that he paid less taxes than his secretary.  Well, that is not so (and what is stopping him from donating more?). He pays millions in taxes and his secretary pays thousands.  He meant that his effective tax rate was less than her tax rate.  This is because his income is mostly from capital gains which are taxed at a lower rate.  I have no problem with this and will not spend time here going into the soundness of that rate.  What I want to suggest loudly to President Obama is if he thinks this is so bad than let's REDUCE the secretary's taxes!  That would be fair.