Obama Comes Clean on Wealth Re-Distribution Dreams

Last Friday President Obama traveled to Virginia, a swing state, as he has frequently done to campaign for re-election. In Roanoke, he made a statement that will come back to haunt him for the rest of the campaign. There is a good piece over at Red State today on the mistake President Obama made in his reasoning for higher taxes on the successful in our country. This is the part of his speech that so very clearly shows the stark contrast between his idea of re-distribution of wealth and free enterprise:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Clearly, business people around the country are taking offense at such reasoning. If President Obama wishes to soak the rich, this is not breaking news for him to state that position. But, this time he tries to justify that position by stretching his logic to include such items as roads and bridges. These infrastructure items are paid for by all of us. If you fill up a gas tank in an automobile, you pay for road building and bridge repairs. That is what gas taxes are used for in states. To justify raising income taxes on the most successful among us by saying that action will produce more roads and bridges is simply wrong. Clearly a smart man like Barack Obama knows where the funding for infrastructure originates. This is just further proof that it is all about wealth re-distribution.

This campaign is shining a spotlight on the basic belief system of Barack Obama, as wasn't so clear in 2008.  When candidate Barack Obama  made news for answering a question from Joe the Plumber in a spontaneous interaction along the campaign trail in 2008, Obama let the phrase "re-distribute" slip as he spoke of taxing Americans. While that answer made the evening news cycle and was included in GOP ads, it was never given the serious attention it deserved.

As a Republican voter, I am happy to hear such honesty come from President Obama. Finally he is telling us who he is in a very precise way. He is an old school, 1960's style liberal. Though his is a dying breed, he continues the fight. To those in the Obama camp, government is the answer to challenges in our daily lives. It is the basic difference between the two political parties that has been blurred in recent years. Republicans believe that personal responsibility is the key to success. Government has a first requirement to keep our borders secure and protect our citizens. Entitlements were not to secure voting blocks but to provide a safety net for those truly in need - the elderly, the disabled, children.

President Obama insulted a whole lot of hard working, sacrificing men and women last Friday in Roanoke. To him, he was simply talking on the stump. He doesn't even understand his mistake. This is understandable. Barack Obama has never worked in the private sector. He has no personal reference to jobs creation, making a payroll, building a business from a home basement to a building in town. He doesn't understand personal sacrifice in that way.

In order to recover from this economic malaise, our country needs the leadership of an experienced business man. We need someone who understands how jobs are created and how personal wealth is made. We need someone who understands the folly of simply throwing billions of dollars at the economy in hopes of recovery. That is a dream that has failed Mr. Obama.