Obama to wealthy: You can’t ‘just relax and go count your money’

Reno, Nevada (CNN) — Over and over Thursday, President Barack Obama told workers at a renewable energy company that he is like them.

He remembers pumping gas when high oil prices ate a hole in his budget, he said. He knows he wouldn’t have made it through college without scholarships and loans.

And now as president, he promised that he won’t let the current debate on deficit reduction deny others the chance for the American dream he has lived.

“We can’t ignore future deficits, but just as ignoring deficits would mortgage our future, failing to invest in our kids and our infrastructure and our basic research and clean energy, that would be mortgaging our future, as well,” he said to applause. “And I’m not willing to do it.” Ads by Google

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Repeating past calls for ending subsidies for oil companies and restoring higher tax rates for the highest-income Americans, Obama defended what he called his balanced approach to deficit reduction and depicted the Republican stance as favoring the well-to-do.

“I’m rooting for everybody to get rich,” he said. “But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.”

To whom much is given (in this life) much is required. A progressive tax is fair.

Exactly how is any of this parable from which you plucked your out-of-context proof-text applicable to government and taxation? Since when did the government become "Master" and "Son of Man"? I didn't get the memo.

41 Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?”
⁴² The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? ⁴³ It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. ⁴⁴ Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁵ But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. ⁴⁶ The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
⁴⁷ “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸ But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

You think that some people ought to pay more taxes simply because they can. Where is the "fairness" or moral logic in your assumption that citizens do not have first claim to their earnings? Do you imagine that the right to property is derived from the state? Where is the justice in your assumption that it is permissible for some to be treated differently under the rule of law based on nothing but unequal income, wealth, power or other some other attribute?

Cordially,

even if the rich did nothing with their money, they would still have to store it somewhere. usually that would be a bank or the market. in either case, the cash is in the system being used and helping grow the economy.

The banks don't need deposits to flood the economy with dollars. I have two words for you: Fractional Banking. All the Fed does is lower the reserve requirements and ..... boom..... more money for banks to lend. We are currently leveraged at approximately 10:1, if you look behind the curtain. That is why the declining investment values (ie home prices and commercial paper) are so disastrous for the large banks - a 10% to 20% erosion in values makes them essentially insolvent if they were forced to actually write down the debts.

Money sitting in an account does nothing to drive the economy. Sure, it can be leveraged by the bank to fractionally increase the number of loans, but it is not creating anything. The same capital could produce 20x to 30x the economic impact if utilized to grow business or start-up a business. The banks are not worried about cash - that is why they have access to the Fed discount window. In fact, for a period, there was a negative interest on the discount window, meaning the Fed was essentially paying the banks to take cash.

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