Posted on 01/07/2014 3:34:22 PM PST by Kaslin
It's no mystery what the left intends to make its next life-or-death issue: income inequality. Liberals are all popping off about it. It's everywhere, from Obama's speeches to liberal think tanks to liberal reporters.
It's almost as if they were conspiring to distract us from Obamacare. Nah!
On "Meet the Press," PBS anchorwoman Judy Woodruff sounded the alarm, not as a dispassionate reporter but as a progressive advocate. While acknowledging Obama's problems with Obamacare, she breathlessly insisted, "At the same time, the argument for doing something about the economy, the argument for addressing inequality, is such a compelling argument."
Behold the liberal mindset. It's apparently only of passing concern to Woodruff that Obamacare caused cancellations of millions of policies of insurance for people. That is so last year.
The important thing is that liberal icon Barack Obama forced quasi-socialized health care through Congress, and any harm it causes people must take a back seat to advancement of the progressive agenda, which is ostensibly designed (in the progressives' minds) to prevent harm to people. Ignore the foolish inconsistency. Nor does it matter that Obama lied about the harm his sacred plan would cause. The progressive agenda is marching forward.
Liberals must now shift our attention to the next issue they can preen about and showcase their moral superiority.
Notice that Woodward didn't say, "We need to get the economy moving again and get people back to work." She conflated "doing something about the economy" with "the argument for addressing inequality."
News flash: You don't do something about the economy by obsessing over income redistribution. The two are connected, but not in the sense that liberals believe they are.
While Obama liberals scoff at conservatives for their alleged "trickledown" approach to economics, they make the preposterous counterargument that you grow the economy "from the middle out," by which they mean you fuel economic growth by redistributing income.
You don't generate economic activity by punishing producers and taking their earnings and giving the money to others. How in the world could that expand the economic pie?
More likely, as history demonstrates, it will shrink the pie by disincentivizing all groups from producing. The wealthy will produce less because when you increase taxes on something (in this case, productivity and success), you get less of it. The recipients will mostly produce less because they are rewarded for not producing.
So "addressing inequality" is connected to "doing something about the economy" but in precisely the opposite way the left implies. Efforts to misuse the tax code to equalize outcomes -- as opposed to using it for the purpose of securing funds for constitutionally prescribed federal government functions -- will usually harm the economy.
Some liberals probably don't even believe their own propaganda that redistribution stimulates economic growth. In 2008, Obama told ABC's Charlie Gibson he favors increasing capital gains tax rates despite the fact that such increases had resulted in less revenue for the government. "It's a matter of fairness, Charlie."
For Obama, it was more important to punish the "rich" than to help the poor. That's his mindset -- and it's warped.
Don't get me wrong. Obama and his fellow leftists are fixated on redistributing wealth, but a major component of that, as witnessed by his attitude on increasing the capital gains rate, is that the wealthy need to be punished -- even if it means hurting lower-income groups.
The irony of all this is that these liberal policies often result in exacerbating income inequality. Obama can pretend, once again, that he's an innocent bystander, but income inequality is getting worse under his presidency.
A half-century and trillions of dollars in government transfer payments have not helped the poor. Even The New York Times is grudgingly conceding that after 50 years, "the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed."
Whether or not liberals are able to process the reality that their programs have failed, they will not abandon them, because class warfare and government dependency programs are their ticket to power. CNN's Candy Crowley unwittingly admitted as much when she asked Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker why any unemployed American or minimum wage worker would become a Republican.
It's not that conservatives don't care about the poor. It's that we do care about the poor -- and everyone else. We believe that our free market solutions generate economic growth, stimulate upward mobility and improve the economic lives of far more people, including the poor and middle class, than any other system. History vindicates us.
The left will always win the "look at how much I care about you" contest. But it loses in the "actually caring" department because at some point, people have to be presumed to have intended the damaging results their policies have consistently caused.
Liberals can posture about how much they care and they can try desperately to change the channel from Obamacare, but the devastating harm that program has caused to millions already may finally have punctured their pretense of caring and their shameless practice of attempting to exempt themselves from accountability for their policies.
Yep, sure as the sun rising . . out come the talking points, and notice who always run with them . .same ol, same ol tired hypocritical idiots
Obama should be first in line to take equal pay. Bet he’s not spreading HIS wealth around.
Ok, Judy, you wanna pay cut, you can have it. Does $15 an hour sound about right?
These people actually think that cutting the pay of CEOs will magically transform every job into a $40 an hour job. Drastic cuts in the pay of CEOs would have a minimal impact on the wages of everyone else.
Just remind the dems, if they cut CEO pay that their donations to the DNC get cut too.
I'd like to see him volunteer for equal benefits. Few CEOs travel with a matched set of Boeing 747s.
Then we will start hearing a bunch of "But, but, but . . . " from the liberals. And our side replies "Well, didn't you want income equality? Isn't this fair now????"
Folks who never seem to get hammered by the MSM for making too much money:
Blowprah
Tiger Woods
Chelsea Clinton-Mezvinsky’s husband
Elliot Spitzer’s father
Mark Zuckerberg
George Soros
Irwin Jacobs
Kobe Bryant
Income inequality is a false metric.
Let’s assume:
1. The poverty level for a family of four is $38,000.00 a year.
2. All families of four earn at least $40,000.00 a year.
3. The highest salaried person earn $40,000,000.00 a year.
The inequality gap between the lowest family of four and the highest family of four is $39,999,960.00.
Let’s also assume:
1. No one gets any promotions. (The left always assumes this even if they won’t admit it.)
2. No one changes jobs. (This is what leftists actually want. Firemen on diesel locomotives!)
3. No one gets a pay raise above the inflation rate.
4. No one gets a pay raise below the inflation rate.
5. The inflation rate stays constant at 3.50% for twenty years.
All the above numbers in the first set of assumptions are doubled. The poverty level is at $76,000.00. The lowest earning family of four makes $80,000.00. The highest earner makes $80,000,000.00.
No one is any better off than he was 20 years earlier. No one is any worse off than he was 20 years earlier. But the leftists will note that the inequality gap is $79,999,920.00! That is too much by their method of emoting.
They apparently ignore the fact that no one is living below the poverty level. No one is better off and no one is worse off. They also ignore the fact that the poverty gap expended from $2,000.00 to $4,000.00 (even though the poverty gap is as meaningless and the income inequality measure.)
In short, leftists are mathematically challenged if not entirely innumerate.
Those on this side of the isle, RHINO or conservative, need to grab the montra of fairness. Anytime the Dems or Media talk about income inequality the response needs to be "It's not FAIR to tax those who work for their income and give it to those who don't."
IOW's they need to be able to put something out there that the Low Info Voters can hang onto and repeat. They will understand the word Fairness
My idea of income inequality is this:
Sit on your fat butt for free, no money from me;
OR,
Get up off it, get some pride back inside you, go to work, AND MAKE SOME MONEY!
“Entry-level jobs” are just that!
Pay the flaming idiot that has to read the computer press board to find what you ordered, the same price as someone in the electronics field???
“GO FISH!”
I like the way you think.
Vote for thieves 2014
“We need to get the economy moving again and get people back to work.”
No worries Judy...Obama has set his sights on fixing unemployment with a laser-like focus...
Why, Debbie Whatshername Schultz explained that way back on November of 2011...
“Well, we’re not focused on poll. I mean, we’re a year away from an election. The president is focused like a laser on passing the American Jobs Act, on making sure we put people back to work.”
Here is what few people have the guts to say: For a while, the rich need to get get richer, the poor need to get poorer and the middle class (which us artificially large due to union and government interference) needs to shrink. This need to continue until the economic natural balance is restored and wealth can be rebuilt on that basis.
We’ve spent 100 years moving in the “progressive,” theft-based direction. It will take a while to unwind all of it. But, if we get on the right course again, being poor will once again become intolerable. Once that happens, few people will choose it as an easy lifestyle alternative.
Class warfare card is pretty worn out.....I smell desperation.
When all else fails and you are losing the PR battle, get the people fighting amongst each other.... race, class, etc.
“I say make a law that everyone earns $50,000.00 a year...”
College professors ... union leaders...Hollywood will most expectedly sign up.
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