The same Obama that didn't unerstand that capital gains tax reductions have historically resulted in more tax revenues for the government, doesn't grasp this fact, nor do most liberals.
Obama understands both of those concepts very well. He just doesn’t care. He’d rather have massive redistribution, giving everyone close to equal pieces of a smaller pie, than have very unequal distribution of a much larger pie - even if it means that the smallest piece of the larger pie is bigger than the roughly equal pieces of the smaller one.
It’s not that he doesn’t understand, it’s that he doesn’t care. I think VDH is right on with this piece, and sums it all up well:
“By the time a shell-shocked public wakes up and realizes that the prescribed chemotherapy is far worse than the existing illness, it should be too late to revive the old-style American patient.”