Barack Obama: "We don't mind..."

Senator Barack Obama held a press conference in Richmond, Virginia, on Wednesday and tried to explain what he meant when he told a Toledo plumber named Joe that he wants to spread the wealth around. The Democratic presidential candidate was defending his plan to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000 in order to send checks to people who make less.

"The simple point I was making," Obama said, "was that even assuming he's at a point that he wants to buy a business that he hopes will generate more than $250,000, the point I was making was that ten years ago or five years ago or even a year ago when he was making a lot less than that, he was having a tough time."

Then the senator accidentally explained more than he intended.

"We don't mind people getting enormously wealthy because of their skills and their talents and their drive," he said.

Is that right.

He doesn't mind.

How generous of him.

In that one sentence, Senator Barack Obama unintentionally put his finger on the very thing that infuriates so many voters about politicians in general and liberal, or if you prefer, progressive, politicians in particular.

It's not their money.

If you go to school, and get a job, and put in a lot of hard hours at work when you could be home watching Oprah, the money you earn belongs to you.

Not to them.

Even if you inherit wealth, that money belongs to you.

Not to them.

That's why the story of 'Joe the Plumber' has such resonance.

It's flat-out alarming to watch an American politician blithely dividing the country into people who have more than they need and people who need more than they have.

In a free country, it's none of the government's business whether you need what you have.

Senator Obama's views are a perfectly logical extension of the progressive tax code and the social safety net. People who have more should pay more, the reasoning goes, and people who are in trouble should get a little help.

It's not a long walk to the view that government should set a ceiling on how much people can earn, or inherit, before their money starts to become everybody else's property.

It's just a short step.

For Senator Obama, it may be a short step right out the window.


Copyright 2008

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "Barack Obama explains socialism," and in "The Tyranny of the Children" and "Defending Capitalism" at www.SusanShelley.com.

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