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Feature
FDR’s Class Warfare: A Tutorial For Obama
Not that he needs any further lessons from the master of confiscatory taxation.
(Page 2 of 2)
Not all congressmen agreed with Chandler. Many opposed Roosevelt’s “capital levy,” as Senator Robert Taft (R-OH) called it. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) called it “prejudicial class baiting.” During the congressional debate, Rep. Charles Gifford (R-MA) said, “The administration [has] set loose the forces of prejudice and disunity.” Rep. John Jennings (R-TN) said of the American taxpayer, “Heretofore, we have sheared him annually—now it is proposed to skin him.” Jennings added, “I do not hold any brief for Henry Ford, but I am glad that he started life with a pair of blue overalls and a monkey wrench and the genius that God Almighty put into his brain, and became a millionaire, because he made other men rich and paid the highest wages that up to that time had ever been paid to the American workingman and covered this whole country with a network of highways.”
Jennings concluded, “The time will come if we continue on down the slippery, steep road we are now on to the precipice that leads to the bottomless pit, the abyss of financial bankruptcy and ruin, the time will come when we can put a taxpayer on exhibition and make money charging admission for people to see him.”
FDR, however, clearly wanted Congress to pass a tax bill that gave him withholding and double taxation on the rich. When the Senate refused to pass such a bill, FDR threatened a veto. “The Senate bill,” the president wrote, “would result in a highly inequitable distribution of the cost of the war and in an unjust and discriminatory enrichment of thousands of taxpayers in the upper income groups.” Yet this “unjust” Senate bill already taxed large incomes almost 90 percent. The Senate-House conference committee, however, under threat of an FDR veto, turned out a bill that taxed million-dollar incomes at 100.6 percent per year for 1944 and 1945. Six months later, however, when Congress refused to raise those rates further in the Revenue Act of 1943, FDR vetoed it and called it “not a tax bill but a tax relief bill providing relief not for the needy but for the greedy.”
FDR’s ACTIONS SEEM PUZZLING. Why “soak the rich” for 100 percent of their income (more or less) when they already face rates of 90 percent in both income and corporate taxes? He knew that rich people would shelter their income in foreign investments, tax-exempt bonds, or collectibles if tax rates were confiscatory. In fact, he saw it happen during his early New Deal years. When he raised the top rate to 79 percent in 1935, the revenue into the federal government from income taxes that year was less than half of what it was six years earlier when the top rate was 24 percent. After that, FDR admitted privately, “Barney Baruch has been saying right along that you have got to reduce the top taxes and that if you do that people will take chances.” But he refused “to pay usury in order to get recovery,” and he kept rates high. Why?
Three points are important here. First, FDR, as a progressive, believed with his cousin Teddy that “swollen fortunes” needed to be taxed at punitive rates to redistribute wealth. In fact, as we can see, redistributing wealth was more important to FDR than increasing it. FDR was the first U. S. president to take redistribution that far.
Second, high taxes on the rich provided excellent cover for his having made the income tax a mass tax. How could a steelworker in Pittsburgh, for example, refuse to pay a new 24 percent tax when his rich factory owner had to pay more than 90 percent?
Third, and possibly most important, class warfare was the major campaign strategy for FDR during his whole presidency. He believed he won votes when he attacked the rich, or they attacked him, and he discussed that with Ray Moley, his speechwriter, and later with Henry Morgenthau, his secretary of the treasury. During the 1936 campaign, when FDR still had double-digit unemployment, he used the rich again and again as scapegoats. Two weeks before the election, FDR announced that wealthy people had long been refusing “to pay a fair share” of the cost of government. Therefore, he boasted, “we increased still further the taxes paid by individuals in the highest brackets—those with incomes over one million dollars a year. Wasn’t that the American thing to do?” Later, when those millionaires sheltered their income to escape the high new rates, Roosevelt publicly denounced them for “tax avoidance” and for not paying their “fair share.” In 1937, perhaps thinking of his next reelection campaign, he told two prominent Democrats, Senator Pat Harrison and Rep. Robert Doughton, that if they would form a “subcommittee to investigate tax avoidance,” that the Democrats would gain “at least 10,000,000 [votes]” by publicly exposing those who sheltered income.
FDR won his long-term battle to retain the withholding tax and keep a large percentage of Americans paying incomes taxes. But in the next generations, Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were each able to slash the top rates; Presidents Clinton and Bush were able to cut the capital gains tax as well. Because these rate cuts created more revenue, and sparked economic growth in the U.S., the old campaign for redistribution slowed down until the arrival of Barack Obama on the political scene.
NO POLITICIAN SINCE FDR has locked into the campaign for redistribution as faithfully or as enthusiastically as Barack Obama. He clearly admires FDR and compares himself to FDR. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek, Obama said FDR was “pretty fiscally conservative,” but in practice Obama has copied Roosevelt’s tax strategy, using his main tactics and even some of his words.
During the 2008 campaign, we saw Obama parallel FDR’s commitment to the principle of redistribution — even if it reduced wealth in society. In an ABC News segment, for example, on April 16, 2008, Obama said he wanted to raise the capital gains tax. Interviewer Charlie Gibson asked:
George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
Obama replied, “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness….” When Gibson retorted, “But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up,” Obama said, “Well, that might happen, or it might not.”
Thus, whatever the impact on revenue, Obama has fought during his presidency to raise the capital gains tax. Not only is it a matter of principle, it is for Obama, as it was for FDR, a useful campaign strategy. Both FDR and Obama had huge spending programs that resulted in high unemployment, increased national debt, and a stagnant economy. The class warfare theme that worked so well for FDR is a major part of Obama’s campaign for reelection. Regardless of whether massive federal spending and high taxes hurt the economy, the political point is that few Americans earn $1 million a year and those who don’t can be riled up at those who do. That’s how, as FDR showed, an incumbent campaigning for reelection can win and win again during hard times.
Republicans put “party over country,” Obama said during an October 6, 2011 press conference. “Millionaires and billionaires…have lower tax rates in some cases than plumbers and teachers.” True, capital gains taxes at 15 percent are lower than income taxes for some middle-class Americans, but that is because the capital gains tax is, in a real sense, a second tax on top of the income tax. All cash invested toward capital gains has already been shrunk by the income tax (and possibly the corporate tax as well). But census data reveal that the top 1 percent of income earners pay 38 percent of the federal income tax; and the bottom 50 percent shoulder less than 2 percent of that total tax burden—which is not a statistic shared by the president. Instead, Obama promotes his new surtax on millionaires, thus “making our tax system fair and just and promoting growth.”
Those who thrive on class warfare, like FDR and Obama, seem to have insurmountable advantages. They can divide America, demonize the rich, and fish for votes among the middle-class and poor. But, as FDR and Obama have discovered, when you penalize the rich, they shelter their wealth, or take it elsewhere. That makes an already depressed economy even more stagnant. Ronald Reagan, by contrast, slashed tax rates on incomes and corporations, and then watched as unemployment and inflation plummeted. The U.S. dramatically expanded its industrial hegemony in the world. Along the way, Reagan carried 49 of 50 states when he ran for reelection. What’s more, when the economy opened up, the poor really did get something from the rich—computers, iPhones, Garmins, the Internet, and flat-screen TVs, for starters. That beats the WPA, the OPA, cash for clunkers, and Obamacare. And it gives those who believe in freedom hope that the votes for President Obama will be redistributed in 2012.
About the Author
Burton Folsom, Jr. is professor of history at Hillsdale College and author of New Deal or Raw Deal? (Simon & Schuster, 2008). His latest book, co-authored with Anita Folsom, is FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011).
About the Author
Anita Folsom works at Hillsdale College and is co-author of FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (139) | Leave a comment
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JaniceGee| 12.8.11 @ 7:56AM
Excellent article, fascinating history and written for a general audience. While noblesse oblige might have guided FDR, Obama's motivations are a lot more sinister.
Jack in Wi| 12.8.11 @ 8:08AM
FDR and Woodrow Wilson are Newt Gingrich's favorite political hero's. Why is Newt Gingrich in the Republican Party? The Neocons also love Frank and Woody because of all their love of worldwide war and globalism. They love the New World Order? Why are they allowed to have any influence in the Republican Party?
Ron and Rand for Peace, Prosperity and Liberty.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 8:31AM
Because Gingrich is a terminal liar, Jack, and if he is elected president his fate will be similar to Nixon's.
George S| 12.8.11 @ 5:01PM
Why is Ron Paul in the republican party?
Jack in Wi| 12.8.11 @ 9:15PM
I predicted earlier today that Gingrich would be gone by Martin Luther Kings birthday. Now that he has endorsed a pardon for the murderous traitor Jonathon Pollard and the fiasco the Trump debate has turned out to be, I think it may be closer to New Years.
Again Ron Paul has led the way to sanity. He told Trump where to go and all the rest followed him except the desperate Santorum [so far]. Now that is real pricipled leadership.
Alan Brooks| 12.9.11 @ 2:03AM
I stand ready to defend obama and his polices, he is a great man. We are too small to understand his brilliance, his mind is racing at the speed of light while we stumble along like a cripple.
My greatest honor is to serve him without reservation.
Dick Nome | 12.8.11 @ 8:51AM
WHere do you two numbskulls get those ideas. Yeah, right.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 8:55AM
Gingrich says he can close the Mexican border by 2014;
only a congenital liar would say such a thing.
Gingrich will say anything to get the nomination next summer.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 9:09AM
actually, he didn't say close the border, yet this is what he said:
"[Gingrich] proposed the building of a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border by Jan. 1, 2014, telling a Tea Party audience it was long overdue, 'We won the entire second World War in 44 months, and now in 25 years we can’t control the border when the entire Texas side of the border is a river.' "
Newt is full of it; the willpower to fight WWII existed; the will to close the southern border does not exist and will never exist. Mexico will become part of America and vice versa, only volunteer border posses could do anything about it-
but when a call goes out for volunteers scarcely anyone shows up.
Buck Ofama| 12.8.11 @ 11:45AM
So, your argument is not based on Newt's philosophy, but on the imaginary lack of national willpower to close the border. Go back to sleep.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:40PM
"So, your argument is not based on Newt's philosophy, but on the imaginary lack of national willpower to close the border."
Gingrich knows very well a boirder fence will not be built by Jan. 1st, 2014.
His nose is longer than Pinocchio's
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:42PM
Gingrich knows and you know a border fence will not be built by 2014.
Indiana Alex| 12.8.11 @ 9:20AM
You mean sort of like "If you like your insurance you can keep your insurance, and if you like you Dr. you can keep your Dr."
This, along with the nonsense about reducing healthcare costs, and reducing the deficit seems to be one biggest snow jobs of modern times.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 9:29AM
"Mexico will become part of America and vice versa, only volunteer border posses could do anything about it-but when a call goes out for volunteers scarcely anyone shows up."
You'd all better brush up on your Spanish.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 10:07AM
Well Brooksie you're on to something. Perhaps we can take a page from the great FDR and turn Mexico into one huge interment camp, GITMO MEXICANO, for soon to be removed American lefties.
Hablo Espanol, Brooksie?
Al Adab| 12.8.11 @ 10:31AM
Rio Grande isn't much of a river. Read American Nations by Colin Woodard for a view of the future of north america. A post United States geography could get rather interesting. Our fight is for more than we imagine.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 11:16AM
"Perhaps we can take a page from the great FDR and turn Mexico into one huge interment camp, GITMO MEXICANO, for soon to be removed American lefties."
Around the same time the Chinese take over America- so you lose, too.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 1:51PM
How does this post reconcile with your previous post when YOU insisted that "Mexico will become part of the United States".
You can't make a cogent argument at all, let alone one that is consistant with a prior inane post.
You are indeed hopeless and changeless, just like your hero, Obozo.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:43PM
Mexico will become part of the US and then the chinese take over the whole enchilada--
the Chinese already own America- they are underwriting us.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 4:14PM
and anthony, your days are numbered; you are going to go where you will not need air conditioning-- Siberia.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 5:15PM
....And you and what army are going to send me there, meathead, the OWS warriors?
ds80| 12.8.11 @ 12:13PM
I see how this works. "I say XXX is a liar", therefore he is a liar.
OK: Alan Brooks, you're a liar.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:45PM
Okay, say both Newt and I are liars; HE is the one running for office.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:15AM
What a pack of 1/2 truths and outright lies in this article. No citations for the supposed "quotes" in this article. Do you ever question where they get their supposed "historical facts"
He just tells you what you want to hear, like Romney, Perry and Gingrich.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 11:19AM
Our financial future lies crumbled on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq.
What a burden of guilt the Rove-Cheney administration brought upon itself.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 2:46PM
Of course Brooksie, an American policy put into effect to secure national security, as well as freeing over 50M people in Iraq and Afghanistan would be consideredy to be a waste of money, by a lefty fool like you.
And spare me the bs of how things have gone in I & A, thanks to the Ds desire for failure.
Yet Fannie & Freddie, Obozo's $trillion stimulus union pay off fraud, err.. "shovel ready jobs" and the purchase of GM and Chrysler are not wasteful in your fevered mind.
Can't wait until we open up GITMO MEXICANO for you lefties.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:47PM
So you're proud of the years 2001 to '08, huh?
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 3:52PM
Absolutely, especially compared to the years '09 to the present.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 4:17PM
You'd have to be a masochist to appreciate the mess that the Rove-Cheney administration made.
The war wasn't planned correctly, there was no exit strategy...
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:21PM
Are you nuts? That's worth > 4000 American lives and over a Trillion dollars when we don't have squat?Bush spent us to h*, finished off what was left over by Reagan undone with our financial regulation and gave us Great Depression II. Even Papa Bush knew better and cried about his son, the bumbling oaf.
Go ask the workers that have jobs at the GM and Chrysler and Ford plants whether President Obama has done well. Yeah, Ford too.
Go ask Osama Bin Laden how he feels after escaping Bush Baby for 8 years and was killed by President Obama's order to kill him.
How about the pirates along the Somalia border whether he's a strong, resolute leader...
If you look longingly back at the Bush administration, or the current crop of Republicants, you're a twit.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.8.11 @ 7:58AM
NO, no, no. FDR has NOTHING to do with what our little Muslim/Marxist Boy King is doing.
He gets his Marching Orders from Marx and Engels. He gets them from Lenin and Hitler. From Mao and Castro. From Mugabe and Chavez.
(Has ANYONE read this Dirtbag's Books?)
He's RUNNING GUNS across the Border, in to Mexico, and passing them out to the DRUG CARTELS, in the hope that, the sight of all of these Dead Mexican Men, Women, and CHILDREN, will help him further his Goal of More Gun Control, up here. Does that sound like FDR? Or the other guys.
Except for Alger Hiss, did FDR surround himself with Marxists, Communists, Maoists, Anarchists, and Fabian Progressives?
Did FDR have any Communist Mentors? Did he have any Marxist Mentors? Was his Mother an Atheist/Communist? Was his Father a Muslim/Marxist? Were his Maternal Grandparents Communists?
Yeah. They're both Redistributors of Other People's Money. But only one of them knelt on his Prayer Rug, facing Mecca, and prayed to a God of Cruelty and Misery, and Murder and DEATH, 5 times a day, for 11 Years. Only one them says that: "The Muslim Call to Prayer is the most beautiful sound in the world".
I don't know about you, but where I come from, that makes him The Enemy.
That's right, I said it. And, until they show me OTHERWISE, that's how it is.
Jack in Wi| 12.8.11 @ 8:15AM
Timmy boy you must be deranged. Roosevelt was surrounded by Communists. In 1945 on his way home from Yalta he made a special trip to see King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. He wanted to get Saudi Oil for america. He promised in that meeting that the USA would never sanction the founding of Israel. Even FDR knew Israel would turn out to be a disaster.
Obama is surrounded by leftwing Zionists and has been his whole career. To call him anything but a firm Zionist is ridiculous. The Muslims hate him for the way he slavishly follows the Zionist line.
oldfart| 12.8.11 @ 8:58AM
Spot on. Taxing the 'rich' is a red hearing. It really means tax the middle class. The Roosevelts and such got their money to be on top before progressive income taxes. They can afford to pay people to invest their money in ways to avoid paying taxes (how much tax did GE as a corporation and Buffet as an individual pay?) They are on top and want to stay there so they will tax the hell out of anyone who wants to break through the glass ceiling by actually ‘earning’ money. At the same time they don’t want to kill the goose which is why we will never have a consumption tax – ‘they’ want everyone to go shopping and go butt hole over tea kettle in debt – more money for their pockets. The OWS movement is protesting against the wrong people.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:22PM
So why are the Republicants against the Payroll tax cut and the President is for it? It's for the 99%, not the rich, Old Fart.
Con Chef (NB) | 12.8.11 @ 9:16AM
Yes, again, its all "ze CHOOOOS" fault. From our resident Vatican Firster, & Cafeteria Catholic, Jackboot.
RCV| 12.8.11 @ 11:40AM
It's the Zionists!!! They're everywhere!!! They're communists AND capitalists!!! Bankers AND anarchists!!! They control EVERYTHING!!!! Only DOCTOR Ron Paul and his little boy Rand can save us!!!!
Claypoole| 12.8.11 @ 9:19AM
Mr. Pennell: Sad to say, both Franklin and Eleanor were blind to the monstrous work of Communism; FDR trusted both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, both agents for Stalin. And Eleanor called Stalin "Uncle Joe."
On a personal note, I enjoy your posts--your knowledge of history is good, and, something to warm the heart of this old English teacher, your writing is excellent.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.8.11 @ 10:04AM
That's what I'm trying to say. It's NOT Roosevelt. He was an North East ELITIST, who believed that Marxism, if you will, could be the way. Just as Robert Frost believed. I'm sure that you're correct when you state that FDR, and the Missus, were ignorant to the Crime Against Humanity, that is COMMUNISM. That's what one gets, when one reads the New York Times, and the New York Times, only.
Apparently the Roosevelts put down Marx's Book, before it got around to explaining Marx's belief that: "If we could GET RID OF 300 Million People, or so, that would make the whole Marxism thingy, a helluva lot easier".
Enough about ME. What do YOU think of the Muslim/Marxist POS in the Oval Office?
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:18AM
Obama is wonderful ... Remember to vote for him on Nov 12, 2012!
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 11:26AM
can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been if McCain had won in '08? all those 'Nam acecdotes:
"and then after a fried chicken lunch we napalmed Charlie..."
Buck Ofama| 12.8.11 @ 11:48AM
Prefer Nam anecdotes to anything that this lying muslim-loving communist C0CKSUCKING "president" (small 'p') has to say.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 2:42PM
Are you 12? you need to get laid and calm down.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 2:54PM
I wonder if McCain's Nam anecdotes, (not acecdotes, moron) are "seared in his mind" like those of the Purple Heart fraud, John F. Kerry's?
Oh, and you can purchase Kerry's warrior videos for a mere $9.99 from the MSNBC webstore, along with "Up in Smoke with Bill and Monica".
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:23PM
Idiotboy
Clsypoole| 12.8.11 @ 7:47PM
Barack Obama is utterly corrupt. As is his entire administration (anyone who would oppose the corruption, with absolute honesty, would have resigned by now).
Obama is also a committed Muslim and Marxist. One has only to watch what he does to understand this.
I fear for the USA if we do not defeat this enemy in 2012.
Please keep posting, Mr. Pennell--I look forward to them.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.11 @ 11:08AM
Timothy, again, thanks.
Claypoole, as an English teacher, you will love my last novel.
www.americaalonesaidno.com
Ladies and gentlemen,
The thing that irks me most is the number of “good Americans” who sat out the last Presidential election. You sat on your fat butts and allowed these communists to take over our government!
That brings me to today.
Every time I read one of your posts about who you will NOT vote for, either sitting this next election out…or writing in…or throwing your vote away in a third party…I get very ill.
Then I get very angry all over again. We non-communists must have ONE goal. Out-vote the communists and fraudulent votes in a landslide.
I don’t give a damn if the last Republican standing is an idiot. He or she will at least be an innocent idiot, and we won’t have another chance to replace the growing power of our communists.
Speaking of the “last Republican standing”, we had better go back to Reagan’s ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT and Quit killing off our candidates.
Look, knot-heads, support who-ever you respect the most during the primaries, but commit here and now to vote ANYBODY BUT OBAMA! Next November.
We still outnumber the communists and the “takers” by a pretty good margin.
The future of our country will be decided with ballots next fall…or bullets. Bullets fly in both directions.
Please!
Get your heads out of your butts.
Look…even if Ron Paul out of some cosmic irony becomes our nominee, I will get off my butt and vote for the dumb sonofabitch. He is as dumb as dirt, but he ain’t a communist!
RCV| 12.8.11 @ 11:42AM
And then, Ken, as you said, we will have lots of shovel ready jobs in America. You're not really that stupid, are you?
Buck Ofama| 12.8.11 @ 11:51AM
Well stated. We must exterminate the communist vermin and the queen roach, Ovomit, at all costs.
chuck| 12.8.11 @ 9:20PM
Correct about Hiss and White.
Churchill was the one who started "Uncle Joe", and trust me, he had no illusions about who he was in bed with.
Jack in Wi| 12.8.11 @ 8:00AM
FDR and Woodrow Wilson are Newt Gingrich's favorite political hero's. Well I guess they have a lot in common. They are all adulterers, who love big government and are big Chickenhawks who love big wars as long as they can have someone else fight them.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 8:14AM
Socialism is poison.
Carl Marx was a sick man.
Lenin was an anti-Semitic socialist.
FDR was a back-bench-er.
LBJ was a drunk-communist.
Jim Carter was a wall of shame.
Bill Clinton was a serial rapist.
Barack Obama is a LIAR.
Carax| 12.8.11 @ 2:39PM
"Socialism is poison." Then why did and Republicans AND the Democrats bailout the banks and the big automakers? Don't you get it? Socialism has always been for the rich. Profits are always privitized and losses are always socialized. I hope a Republican wins in 2012 so you'll know what I'm talking about. What a short memory you people have on this site - guess you forgot all the good it did to have eight years of Republican rule did under Bush II, the highest debt in the history of the US, deteriation of the infrastructure, tax breaks for the rich while the rest got less. Some people never learn.
Grzmlyk| 12.8.11 @ 4:22PM
Those bailouts aren't socialism. They're crony capitalism - or, more accurately, institutional theft - whereby losses are "socialized" and profits are privatized. But it's sleight of hand in any case - the premise of socialism is social ownership of the means of production, not an oligarchy of corrupt bankers raiding the treasury while government holds the door open.
And Bush's $400 billion deficit pales in comparison to Obama's, at $1.4 trillion and counting.
The truth is that socialism is an economic unicorn - it does not exist in the real world, and it never has.
First of all, in today's rubric, it boils down to Henri de Saint Simon's concept (appropriated by Marx) of "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs."
But what absolute power exists, in any context, that can determine what one person's "abilities" are and another's "needs" are? Those are subjective judgments in practice; hence the inevitability of the corruption of a socialist state for that reason alone.
At the birth of the Soviet Union, Leninism - the first large-scale implementation of socialism in the emerging modern world - was never, not for one moment, about socialism. It was a name that appealed to the academics and idealists for a naked, brutal and ruthless power grab, pure and simple, by Lenin's Bolsheviks - ironically named, because the cadre who grabbed power were in fact a small minority of the population.
These thugs maintained power by stealing from the middle class and and demonizing and appropriating land from the "Kulaks."
There never has been socialism in the history of the world; it is simply an ideological conveyor belt whose function is to drain resources from a large group of people (in our case, that's the middle class, NOT the red herring of "millionaires and billionaires") and put it in the hands of the tyrants who hold power at the point of a gun.
Nancy in NC| 12.8.11 @ 8:19AM
The sad thing is so few people know or understand the history of the Dims and their elitest atttitude; they know better than the mere peasants.
Thanks to an education system that rewrites history to suit their agenda, our liberty is almost gone.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:20AM
YOUR liberty IS gone...
Dave Williams| 12.8.11 @ 1:11PM
...yours too, if you only knew it, ya dumb little sheeple...
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 2:43PM
No, I'm with the 99% ... you aren't ... you lose.
chuck| 12.8.11 @ 9:22PM
Don't you have park to "occupy" somewhere?
Ground Control| 12.8.11 @ 11:55PM
Do you really fancy yourself as part of 99% of Americns? You truly are delusional.
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:15AM
Yes, the question is, why aren't you with us? The wealthy have all the money and power - what have you got? paycheck to paycheck is freedom?
Ground Control| 12.9.11 @ 1:54AM
"Freedom is slavery and slavery is freedom."
Look, dummy, I make a good living. I don't need or want government redistribution of money. If you can't make it in the World, or perhaps you just plain refuse to, that is YOUR responsibility, not mine. Taking money from others to spend on yourself is theft, even (especially!) if done under the authority of "government." It is too bad that you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.
Louis Jenkins| 12.8.11 @ 8:35AM
To me it sounds as if they are two peas in a pod. Shake them up, turn them upside down, and you'll have trouble determining which falls out first. I agree that both men loved to tax. Unfortuntely, FDR is now in the past, and we're living with a current president who is horrorable. Thank the Lord that presidents now only have two terms. We either have one more year, or are approximately half way through Obama's tenure, not that Obama wouldn't gladly accept a third and fourth.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:22AM
"I agree that both men loved to tax. " - As opposed to the Bush's and Reagan that loved to borrow and runup the National Debt that we are all stuck with now? The first thing the Republican House did was change the Pay-Go rules, so they didn't have to pay for what they spend.
Louis Jenkins| 12.8.11 @ 3:44PM
Yes, and we need to take the Republicans to task over it too. Run up the national debt, run up the national debt, run up the national debt, that's all congress (and Republicans too) know. I'll have to agree with the Old Texican, we need to hold our noses and pull the lever to oust Obama come next Nov. Anything else is suicide, and even that may be a one way ticket.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:24PM
Sure, why not continue the damage GW Bush started by letting the elected and connected f* the rest of the us, the 99%? Sure, why not?
chuck| 12.8.11 @ 9:24PM
Don't you have park to "occupy" somewhere?
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:16AM
Don't you have a d* to stick in your mouth? Like Ted Haggert?
George S| 12.8.11 @ 5:24PM
The national debt has nothing to do with Reagan or any president. It has to do with the Great Society. Our national debt would be non-existent if it weren't for Medicare and the expansion of social security into "disability" pay outs. Over 2/3 of the federal budget is transfer of money from the earners to the government for the express purpose of entitlements. That is why we are where we are -- not because of "wars" or the "military-industrial complex" or any other supposed expenditure of a Republican president. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, whoever -- they all had to budget entitlements that kick in by law (Medicare, social security).
But Obama is in a class by himself. What exactly did we pay for in the stimulus? Why wasn't that enough? What else does Obama need to spend on that it is crucial to raise taxes on "the rich"? Nothing. It is about taking from the producers to the takers to get the vote of the takers.
Much easier to sit on a couch and demand you bennies than have to figure out a way to produce a product or service that other people find useful AND ultimately have the option to decline or accept you labor.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:34PM
That is such horses****. The National Debt stood at 1 Trillion when Reagan came into office. He added 2.2 Trillion to the debt. HW Bush added 2.8 Trillion, Clinton added < 1 Trillion, and Bush Baby added 5.7 Trillion. Add it up. So if you don't like debt -" blame yo'self" and those you elect.
Reagan cut taxes and immediately increased military spending which created ballooning deficits. Read this chart and weep:
http://nation.foxnews.com/us-d...../chart-day
Why is it you people can't see capitalism coexisting with the social safety net? They are not mutually exclusive.
Anyway, Republicants stood in the way of a larger stimulus with the Senate fillibuster. The D's only had 60 votes for 6 months, after MN finally seated Al Franken, so dont bother with that red herring.
Since I am a producer and I will support President Obama, you are wrong... and I know lots of people I work with that support him, so you're full of s* on that too.
That's another thing you people ALWAYS b* about. Someone is sitting on a couch collecting money from the government, and, of course, they are lazy, drug addicts, good-for-nothings. Never mind that 1/3 of Social security recipients are disabled or children. Never mind that 40 million retirees are on Social Security. I get tired of hearing your moaning - once again, if you don't make enough money - "Blame Yo'self" .
PatriotGal2257| 12.8.11 @ 8:44AM
Excellent article with very interesting history about FDR. I noticed that, as usual, the Dem senator of FDR's era had no trouble amassing wealth for himself during the war and very likely afterward, while wanting to tax it on virtually everyone else. It's true that nothing ever changes with politicians.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 8:44AM
FDR brought socialism in the land of capitalism.
Since then Americans are poisoned and became addicted to FDR's flawed social and economic policy.
Ronald Reagan got us out of that mess.
Yet, we are in that debacle again because of failed leadership of Bush and the devil, Obama.
God bless America.
richard ryan| 12.8.11 @ 8:46AM
Charles Gibson-GREAT question. And Obama's answer really reveals what I've suspected for a long time: Liberals do not raise taxes to gain REVENUE, they use taxes as a vote getting tool. "Fairness" at the expense of the well being of this country. What a shame.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:23AM
Shame on the Republicant party that is more interested in beating Obama than helping the American people get jobs, jobs, jobs.
But the jobs picture is changing to the better, in spite of the Republicants... I luv it.
Con Chef (NB) | 12.8.11 @ 11:36AM
Yeah. You're so smart that you tout jobs figures based on seasonal hiring. And let's see you're smile when most of those folks get canned after Christmas.
Your Messiah hasn't done SHIT for jobs. Which is why he'll be losing his very soon. Face it, Purplepuke, there aren't enough of you regressive idiots left anymore who think that MaoBama's "too big to fail."
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 1:23PM
Wow, how interested are you in improving the American economy - typical right-wing cynicism just so you can beat Obama. That really is all your interested in isn't it? Obama has created over 3 million jobs since he came into office - at a time when shit-for-brains Bush Baby was shedding jobs at 780,000/month, and had been since 2007. And did nothing about it. YOU may want to blame Obama, but the American people blame the Republicants - and now they want to raise taxes on all of us? Seriously, your party needs a brain transplant. You've been found wanting and the door is coming on Nov 12 - don't forget to vote.
George S| 12.8.11 @ 5:42PM
Obama had a filibuster-proof Senate and a 70-seat House majority. Republicans had no way to stop him then. What did he do? Stimulus and ObamaCare. Did they work? No.
What jobs were created? Every month for the past three years we hear 400,000 apply for unemployment.
Either Obama fixed the economy in his first two years unopposed by Republicans -- in which case you cannot state Republicans are now obstructing his grand recovery -- or he didn't. In which case he is incompetent or malicious.
Shouldn't we oppose incompetence or maliciousness? That would be the patriotic thing to do.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:41PM
No, he had a Senate with 6o votes for 7 months, from the time Al Franken was seated in May 2009 to January 2010, when Scott Brown was seated by Massachusetts. And, then he had Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu, hardly true blue Democrats.
And, in that time frame we got the Healthcare Act, a monumental achievement, whether you agree or not, Financial Reform of Wall Street, again probably something you don't like. The Stimulus had to be negotiated with the Republicants, since he didn't have the 60 votes then, remember?
So, to say he was unopposed by the Republicans and had total control of the Senate for 2 years, is a bald-faced lie but I'll give you this - Are you ignorant, stupid, or evil?
Why are the Republicants fighting a tax cut? Why don't they want the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to have it's director confirmed? To protect the 1% ... I stand with the President and the 99% - question is why don't you?
chuck| 12.8.11 @ 9:25PM
Don't you have park to "occupy" somewhere?
hardcard| 12.8.11 @ 8:51AM
FDR was surrounded by communists, stalin had dispatched hunderds of moles into our government at every level and agency, not to mention all the commie/socialists, who were free agents and idealoges. we thought the cold war was over when the Berlin Wall came down,not so they changed tactics to defeat the USA and further their cause of global national socializm.
A. C. Santore| 12.8.11 @ 10:35AM
"Gunner Joe" McCarthy was right. Period.
Aces and Eights| 12.8.11 @ 9:07AM
'As Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist 21 of such taxes: "The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources." He added, "If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product in the treasury is not so great.…This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."'
Mr. Hamilton just explained the "Laffer Curve", the economic reality that higher tax rates decrease tax revenues and lower tax rates increase tax revenues, which was the basis for the economic boom (and record revenues) of the 1980's following the Reagan tax cuts. This proves of course, that economics may be the "dismal science" but it is also a very old science, and has been understood by intelligent people for millenia. That modern leftists ignore this in a quest for every more tax money to play with, shows the underlying stupidity of the Democrat Party Platform.
scotchieguy| 12.8.11 @ 10:58AM
I don't think libs 'ignore' this due to stupidity, I think they ignore it for votes. They realize taxing the hell out of the rich really won't raise that much more money, and in fact will end up becoming counterproductive, as we have seen in the past, but they seek to punish the rich so the masses will say, "yeah, that's more like it, now we will vote for you!" FDR achieved that to perfection in the 1930's and 1940's.
Aces and Eights| 12.8.11 @ 11:57PM
I'll buy that. Vote buying was FDR's #1 priority, as was LBJ's and clearly Obama's.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 9:10AM
FDR was economically illiterate, and was swarmed by those SEIU thugs.
Indiana Alex| 12.8.11 @ 9:33AM
What I like most about the article is the reassertion of the idea that today's conservatives, like the Founders, believe that our rights come from God, while the "progressives"* believe it is through the benevolence of government that we are allowed to keep what we can of our property. Thus, the ass hat idea that tax cuts represent a "cost" and have to be somehow "paid for".
Taxes cost money, and tax increases cost more. It is, afterall, the property of the individual to begin with, and the government does not have the first claim.
*Amazing in one sense that current view of history is so short that Liberals are recycling a term that was so abhorrent to so many, for so long because of the inhumanity of "progressive" policy prescriptions. In the sense that most of today's "progressives" understand so little of anything (Microphone check: Let me repeat the thoughts of someone else) it is perfectly understandable.
VonMisesJr| 12.8.11 @ 9:34AM
Great article. If you take the logic to the next level, you can see why the fate of Greece was inevitible, as it will be for America if the Progressives continue control.
The top 1% sheltered income to avoid taxation, and now that it has been extended to approximately half the populations of Greece and America, they are doing the same. It leads to an underground economy that the government cannot tax. Greece collapsed not just because much of the population works for the government or receives entitlements, but the remaining population trades in barter. Result: virtually no taxes collected and mounting deficits.
So our elitist in government figured out how to redistribute wealth by crashing the housing and stock markets. A woman called Rush yesterday to explain how in 2005-2006, Fannie and Freddie engineered 2-3 year ARM's to all reset in 2008. They also had a program to create 700 credit scores for any and all for the purposes of closing a mortgage. The next day the same people could not get a home appliance on credit or a credit card. Hence, not only was the subprime crises intentional, but it was timed for Obama's election. If you recall, Chucky Cheese Schumer caused the panic at Indy Bank on June 11, 2008 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAYLeK3YAie4).
So through TARP, stimulus and inflation; FDR's dream came true. Unless you were smart enough to buy precious metals.
scotchieguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:04AM
I also listened to that lady on Rush's show. She knows her stuff, and you can tell he was totally impressed with her. I hope he gets into it in greater depth, and maybe has her on again. He asked who was the biggest culprit, and she said Fanny and Freddie. I'm surprised there aren't more people willing to share their own experiences who are also "in the know."
VonMisesJr| 12.8.11 @ 11:33AM
Thank you. Perhaps you are also a Scot. Rush was talking also about one of the great men of my ancestors nation, Adam Smith. His "invisible hand" explanation is also priceless but yet so rudimenary.
Grzmlyk| 12.8.11 @ 3:36PM
Damn, I missed that woman calling into Rush. I'd love to hear more from/about her. Anybody catch a name? I assume she was in the industry, like that woman in the insurance biz who calls in periodically to give him a bird's eye view of the effects of Obamacare on actual human beings.
Al Adab| 12.8.11 @ 10:34AM
Redistribution policies make everyone poor.
A growing expanding free economy enriches all.
Or as JFK put it when proposing his tax cuts, "A rising tide lifts all boats."
The issue was settled long ago. Why suffer these lying fools so gladly.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 10:39AM
JFK was absolutely right. The problem JFK did not forsee was that a rising tide does not lift Oldsmobiles.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:29AM
What JFK meant was as you lift the least among us, all "boats" rise - "A rising tide lifts all boats" ... Do you work for Fixed News?
Al Adab| 12.8.11 @ 12:19PM
Sorry Purp, but your revisionism here won't cut it. What JFK said and meant is that an expanding economy enriches everyone. Lincoln knew it also when he said, "That some become rich means that others may become rich." It is the prospect of persoanl success for all that drives the American vision. No, there are no gurantees but remember than, baring the dependant class social programs create and encourage, the "poor" are not in a permanant status. The movement of individuals between quintiles annually is great. Some get richer others poorer but movement is constant. Unlike the Marxists (no I'm not calling you one since I don't know) we deal with individuals not socio-economic classes.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 2:57PM
Yes, as the general economy improves, all boats will rise - not that the biggest boat rises and brings the rest with it... it never has worked that way. The ability to move between quintiles has been dead for 30 years, thanks to St.Reagan and bunch - other than by inflation. That's why everyone is so po-d. The income increase for most of us has been flat while the 1% have skyrocketed. Go look it up.
George S| 12.8.11 @ 5:53PM
No, the reason incomes have stagnated is because government spending as a percentage of GDP has skyrocketed. Meaning that your employer has to pay more and more to comply with government regulations -- money that would have gone to you in the form of a raise or hired more of your neighbors.
The 1% of incomes that skyrocketed can be found in the field of government consultation. More millionaires are found in the legal, lobbying and consulting professions (the Virginia - D.C. Axis) who's expertise is keeping government off your back or maintaining non-free market advantages (i.e., ethanol). Or from having access to the power structure. Rahm Emmanuel made 18 million in two and a half years doing that. How many doctors make that kind of money?
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:44PM
Nope - the 1% have had their incomes increase 256% over the last 30 years, they have not stagnated. Why is that, hmmm?
Consultants? Are you kidding me? the average CEO makes 500times what the avg worker in his firm makes. Before Reagan, it was 50 times... now how did that happen, hmmm?
So you're making my point that the 1% have been sucking on the government teat and it all started with Reagan at our expense. You don't see that?
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 3:09PM
Ass backwards as usual Purpleguy. A rising tide, that which elevates the most productive, will invariably, aid those less fortunate.
Ex. If the more successful lawyers can charge $150.00 p/h, than as a result, less successful lawyers can charge $100-$125 p/h, as opposed to $75 p/h, because of the market price set by the more successful.
Conversely, if we waited for the losers in life, like you Purpleguy, to elevate the rest of us, we'd be making what you make at McDonald's 3rd shift.
Have you learned something today?
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:46PM
Trickle down economics doesn't work. The people at the top just keep going up and the rest of our boats are stuck in the mud.
As far as loser, I'd put my income up against yours any day. I AM in the top 2% of earners, but not the typical selfish, self-centered, money grubbing models you so want to emulate. For the record, I have never worked at McDonald's, but I did work at Burger King - when I was 16.
gary siebel| 12.8.11 @ 3:18PM
Adam Smith was in favor of proportional taxation.
Cynthia Pestka| 12.8.11 @ 10:39AM
Why don't we just say it? Any time the gov. shows up and says they're here "to help" , we better jump back and run as fast as we can in the other direction. The ONLY thing gov. (of either party) has done successfully is get power and wealth into the hands of the few, and keep it there. For too many years, citizens who actually care about their country (instead of power) have been kept out of the system. If we want to change gov., we need to change that. How many of our Congressmen(and women) pay? Many (Pelosi, Reid, McCain) are considered "rich". I'm sorry, do they really expect me to believe that they WANT to pay more taxes?
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:31AM
Actually, I agree with much of what you say. But the Republicants are just as guilty if not more so. They are the wealthiest in Congress.
Otherwise, the 1% should pay more taxes, not you. And that is what Obama wants - not more from you, but less. Did you not know that?
Cpl.Punishment| 12.8.11 @ 11:56AM
I don't know where you get your info, but the richest people in congress are all dems. Out of the top ten, 8 are dems. Only the top 2 are republicans.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:08PM
I agree with you 100%.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:48PM
You're a fool.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:50PM
"7 out of the top 10 richest members of Congress are Democrats." - but "There are more Republicans on the list, 31 out of 50, and the total of those 31 is greater than the Democrats" - and, yet even though both D's and R's are rich, only the Democrats want to help the 99%. Why is that? Here's the proof. They are both rich, but only one side is for the people:
http://polipundit.com/?p=32720
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:06PM
GE is the biggest donor of Obama re-election campaign.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:09PM
You're a LIAR.
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:19AM
go look it up, dweebles.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 11:12AM
The Founders did expect the most fortunate to pay more than those that were the least fortunate and to redistribute wealth... It is in the American Bones.
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometric progression as they rise" - Thomas Jefferson.
And Abraham Lincoln added ""Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Moreover, Teddy Roosevelt said "In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. "
"In other words, if the government taxes whiskey, tobacco, or imported French wine at too high a rate, people will drink less and smoke less--and revenue will go down." - you don't interpret Alexander Hamilton correctly, but then that is your plan, to misdirect, obfuscate to your own purpose.
Everyone pays his share as their means allows - and that is the essence of the Founders opinion. In any case, since 1913, the issue has been settled, so pay up and shut up.
RCV| 12.8.11 @ 11:43AM
Thanks for the dose of historical reality!
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:15PM
The Founders expect "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
That included individual rights, free-enterprise, and the limited government.
Government is the problem, and those labor unions, as well.
We the People.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 1:35PM
Wrong. The Founders didn't say ""Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of happyness." - the Declaration of Independence did. No where in the Constitution, which IS the law of the land will you find that phrase. You need some education boy.
" We the people " IS from the Constitution, but the writer of the Declaration of Independence the "Atlas of American Independence", and the Commander who won the Revolutionary War all violated the Constitution they so carefully help write. Do you know who? Do you know how? They were pragmatic men, not ideologues like you people. Well, do you know the answers? Hmmmm?
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:49PM
Also the Founders never mentioned of socialism, rather they prescribed free-enterprise, and warned us from the venom of socialism, and thus they sought to limit the role of government and specify the civil rights.
Government is the problem, it impedes the economy, it kills jobs, it demonizes its own people.
It's not the government, but WE THE PEOPLE.
I hope you will wake up one day.
It's about time, honey.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:55PM
You really need to read Alexander Hamilton's treatise on Manufactures. "Hamilton reasoned that bounties (subsidies) to industry, which would rely on funds raised by moderate tariffs, would be the best means of growing manufacturing without decreasing supply or increasing prices of goods. Such encouragement through direct support would make American enterprise competitive and independent along with the nation as a whole." So the government always had a hand in planning the economy ... and that's what's wrong now - we don't. Free market is killing us.
This country had an industrial policy all the way from the Founders up until Ronald Reagan killed it, and we've been sliding ever since St.Reagan killed us.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 3:41PM
"Everyone pays their share, as their means allow-and that is the essence of the Founder's opinion".(corrections added) So says Purpleguy!!!
In other words, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to their needs". Karl Marx.
You got the wrong Founders, dude. Unless you think Madison et al wrote the Communist Manifesto.
You must be a product of the public schools, and you didn't attend Harvard either to lean this.
Between this and your rising tide anaology, you are on a roll today, your idiocy is on display!!!
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 8:57PM
You'll notice I said nothing about "according to their needs" ... THAT would be socialism - can you not get that straight?
George S| 12.8.11 @ 6:09PM
How dare you revise Thomas Jefferson...
You fail to mention the context of that snippet. What Jefferson was referring to was the practice of government DENYING the use of land to all but the politically connected (the same way zoning laws of today restrict development of open land so as to artificially escalate property values by creating a scarcity of property) and instead keep the land idle to intentionally increase its value. The unavailability of fertile land to those who can afford it created the poverty Jefferson was decrying. You cannot have a right to property if you are barred from acquiring it.
The Founders were not in favor of redistribution. Read the Constitution. Prior to the 16th Amendment, it was illegal for Congress to tax individuals directly -- they had to send a tax bill to the States and the States collected and sent the money to the treasury by census enumeration and/or apportionment.
Our glorious public education at full display.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 9:01PM
Thomas Jefferson would support the "Occupy Wall Street" movement: "By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property taken from him by another by force or fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice." --Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:104" Take back your foreclosed homes by force if need be - Thomas Jefferson is with you!
nathan| 12.8.11 @ 12:44PM
Good gentle people, I remind you again what Buckeley supposedly said so many years ago, he was prepared to see a dictatorship at home if that is what it took to beat the soviets abroad. Far too many of you seem to buy into that.
Let us all agree that Obama is ghastly horrible should not have been elected was elected for the wrong reasons but thanks to a perfectly horrible "I'm entitled to the nomination because look at what I did for my country" candidate, and also because the previous administration had been horrible and frankly the republican congress had been as liberal as the democrats who replaced it, he got elected anyway.
All conceded right? This guy is really shouldn't be given a second term. Anyone disagree with this? Raise your hand. Any hands raised? Not even mine thank you. Now that I have said something ALL of us agree on let's move on.
The problem here is this, and it's a huge problem. I am no more interested in a dictatorship from the right than I am from the left. Just because he's a "republican" candidate doesn't mean he isn't a threat to individual liberty and the safety of the country. Bush/Cheney spent 8 years trashing the Constitution they had sworn to uphold and defend. They committed us to two wars we are now in the process of losing at the cost of over three trillion dollars, nearly 10,000 American lives, maybe, who knows but maybe one million civilian deaths in Iraq, several cities reduced to rubble, two "democracies" established that are sharia based that no one on this site would ever live under, our principles ignored and trashed too, Abu Ghraib was just one of so many instances where we looked and acted so horribly bad to the point where international human rights organizations tell us not to show up at meetings any more because we have lost all credibility on things like abuse, torture, all of it and we could go on but you get my point.
I have zero and I mean zero interest and none of you should either in electing any republican who is going to give us eight more years of Bush/Cheney. And sad to say when it comes right down to it, and this pains me, but given that horribly ghastly Fifth Amendment destroying amendment to the defense bill that McCain sponsored which hopefully the president will veto, we may from a individual rights perspective, be better off with a lame duck president and looking at a republican house and senate, than a republican president who really wants to be king, accepts no limits on himself or the presidency, and will take us further towards a police state than that lame duck president semi paralized by a congress in contr0l of the other party.
And it's sad that we're even talking such choices aren't we? In more rational times, Newt would never be considered a serious candidate. But again, right wing police states, with all the "good intentions" as Buckeley supposedly was willing to sign onto was no more acceptable than one from the left. Try to remember that.
PolishKnight| 12.8.11 @ 2:38PM
It's funny that the point about Abu Ghraib demonstrating that the USA acted so badly that international human rights organizations don't want us to show up anymore. Which ones in particular? The ones headed by Syria and Saudi Arabia? Indeed, that demonstrates precisely why Abu Ghraib is a red herring. Photos of people in a pile? Or a woman posing with a masked man? This isn't pulling-out-fingernails-with-pliars level torture here. The Italian police subjects Amanda Knox to more abuse and civil rights violations than in Abu Ghraib. (With the difference that the Abu Ghraib interrogators probably got out more truth from their prisoners.) More on this and 5th amendment rights later.
Regarding the destruction of the 5th amendment. The left usually whines about it being "abused" by the existence of Foxnews. Namely, people saying things that the left disagrees with are denying the left the "right" to free speech as defined by people only saying leftist things. This is like racism being the notion that white males have civil rights and ending racism is about bashing whites. For all the talk about civil rights abuse by Bush/Cheney and how we're now living in Nazi Germany, it really isn't all that bad since 911. OK, taking off the shoes and the chest Xrays at airports are offensive but really, is it that bad? Is it the end of the world?
And Obama really is a different kettle of fish than Bush/Cheney. They want a total socialist state with a race/gender driven regime with white working class males in sub-human status. They're even toying with the idea of being open about it.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:05PM
27 million people are out of work, that's unacceptable.
HELP DEFEAT OBAMA.
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 1:36PM
Never put the wolves in charge of the henhouse ... Republicants will kill the rest of the economy with their 1% protection racket.
bill| 12.8.11 @ 1:55PM
Welcome to Obama Recession.
Changes under Obama: Unemployment 9%, $15 trillion debt, Cutting defence budget by almost $1.8 trillion (that's absured), America has become a Mecca for abortion and gay marriage, OWS mobs sponsored by DNC, Iran acquired nuclear weapons, Isreal lost its sovergnity.................
Purpleguy| 12.8.11 @ 9:02PM
I sure wouldn't want to be in your little world ...
Konnie| 12.8.11 @ 10:44PM
Any post of yours, I automatically skip. I know from experience it will be inane. How do you know so much that is just WRONG and SILLY? Really. Just stop. Please. Hold your little fingers back and READ the posts....try to understand what they are saying. You just vomit back your ideology without thinking. Stop. And. Listen. You are passionate and quick, but you don't listen or learn from anyone.
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:25AM
That's because I know everything (and because I know how to google, LOL). Everytime someone puts out a list, there is usually an equal and opposite list. So what? Either you are with the 99% or you are with the 1%. Since the 1% have had their way for 30 years - you can google that - it's time we of the 99% had our way. Stop voting for the shills of the 1%. They have power, but they don't have the votes. They cannot win if you don't let them. You think Fixed News is on your side? Please... they want to control this country like they did in Britain - Prime Ministers Kow-tow to Rupert Murdoch and in this country already Republicants have to genuflect to Rush Loudmouth. Really? That's okay with all you good hard-working people?
Carax| 12.8.11 @ 2:26PM
What short short memories readers of the American Spectator have. Until the Bush II administratiion the US had a surplus instead of a trillion $ debt load. Bush II put us in this mess to begin with. A little in-depth reading of American political history will bear out that America was never socialist, even under FDR. It was always a capitalistic system rigged for the rich that evolved to the present form of oligarchic capitalism. And now the nitty gritty real class warfare has begun with conservatives in the lead who want to strip the middle class of all their wealth and give it to the rich. Beautiful unauthorized historical revisionism by the authors though.
gary siebel| 12.8.11 @ 3:10PM
From which planet are you writing? Have you never heard of "loopholes"? Or Warren Buffett?
J.P. Morgan sat on the committee that decided in favor of the income tax, but guess what: he paid no income tax, and declared that fact to be a legal rather than moral matter.
Redistributionism is clearly not the answer, but neither is coddling the rich.
nathan| 12.8.11 @ 3:37PM
@Polish Knight. Abu Ghraib was about helpless detainees being tied to shower heads and being beaten to death to the point where their faces were unrecognizeable. THAT kind of abuse. It was about detainees like the Canadian being loaded on airplanes and sent to countries where we knew they would be tortured in total violation of all international agreements we are signatories to. If you contract out your torture it's the same as if you do it yourself. The Canadian was innocent of course but horribly scarred. There are so many people like him they have an organized group. And arguably should be compensated. Read "Ghost Plane" sometime.
The Fifth Amendment as the Fox judge points out says "No PERSON . . . shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." What McCain is proposing would delete that from the Constitution without a formal amending action. And notice it applies to everyone in federal custody since person means everyone. And Graham said it would apply to Americans in this country. Go back and read the debate folks.
Also as I continue to point out, the 1866 Supreme Court looked at what Lincoln did and said in no uncertain terms that he was categorically wrong, you cannot throw the Constitution under the bus because of war or national emergency. But that's precisely what the Bush folks did and for the same reason.
The McCain amendment as written and explained by both McCain himself and Graham and someone like Newt is VERY dangerous. Again, Newt is more interested in being king than president. He shows no restrain in his personal or professional life. Does he have the temperment to be president? To really protect individual rights? Nothing in the last 20 years or so suggests he does.
We're better off with one of the other choices but as I said, choosing between him with a compliant yes sir to THE SMARTEST MAN IN ROOM congress or a lame duck semi paralyzed president, from the standpoint of our freedoms it may be the latter.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.11 @ 3:51PM
"Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 2:54PM
I wonder if McCain's Nam anecdotes, (not acecdotes, moron"
Acecdotes as in caca, you turd, ANT- ony.
You pissant.
Anthony| 12.8.11 @ 5:27PM
Go away little boy, you are pathetic and you made enough of a fool of yourself for one day.
See you tomorrow, that is, unless the rising tide drowns your sorry ass.
Thom| 12.8.11 @ 5:28PM
Over 150 years ago a nominal 618,000 men died deciding an issue regarding who owns the fruits of one’s labor be it institutional slavery or some form of involuntary servitude. That contest held today would account for over 6,000,000 dead fought with the same weapons as existed in 1860s. After all was said and done the “losers” were occupied and forbidden to vote against a series of amendments that dealt with the short comings of the original ratified constitution in such a manner as to bring about a new form of involuntary servitude via a Central government with dominance over all the others. The experiment in self-rule under a Republic started to die at that moment. Might makes Right....
I am never surprised by people driven by envy and jealously of others who defend the taking of someone else “fruit” to enrich their own shortcomings as a free person but it does get ridiculous to see arguments about the policies of those steeped in the virtues of Karl Marx and alike to put forth the argument that anything resembling stealing from one person to give to another is anything consistent with our Founding, moral and not in blazing violation of all that the many gave in blood and treasure to secure and left a many hallowed ground in testament to.
To wit the essence of our Founding and the entire concept of a Constitutional Republic rest on the foundation that no one is above the law and the law equally applies to all. Supporters of the redistribution of wealth by whatever form it takes defecate on this very concept with every mouthful of Marxist crap they spew. The very concept of “law” depends on the equal application of it and by nature of that if you institutionalize the concept that “some animals are more equal than other animals” as our tax policies certainly do in 7,000,000 spades you have destroyed the very foundation of the Republic concept and as history has recorded many times over the corruption of the political system that follows is just the tip of the rotten society that feeds it. If someone making more “income” or living in a better house than you is worthy of being treated as a “slave” I can assure you that someone making less than you can adopt the same views of your “income” and wealth just as justly as you can. Envy and jealously know no bounds to which those infected with it will not stoop. The evils of Karx’s “progressive income tax” system served a purpose in his Kingdom of Ant Colonies and he would be proud of his supporters today.
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:55AM
Redistribution of wealth has existed since our founding ... you'll never get away from that or a government could not function - but what bothers you is where or who the wealth is distributed to. that's not freedom, it's bigotry.
The Founders believed in a progressive taxation system, they were not conservatives, they were radical progressives. Get over it already.
R Martin| 12.8.11 @ 6:20PM
Professor Folsom writes a cautionary tale on the dangers of allowing “progressives” to get the thin end of their wedges into public policy. It always gets worse and goes badly.
The wedge they’re trying to drive today is that wealth and income inequality needs to be addressed as an economic scourge. That idea needs to be soundly beaten down. A good start is to read Professor Folsom’s work on the early entrepreneurship which powered the dynamic engine of American economic growth: “The Myth of the Robber Barons”. In that short book he documents how private enterprise beat government subsidies at every turn in key industries such as transportation, steel and oil. Highly recommended.
POST American| 12.8.11 @ 9:37PM
----AS news breaks that FEMA CAMPS
are being activated on a 72 hour standby
notice----
(SEE InfoWars)
IMPORTANT to keep in mind, as we
consider the FAKE dialectics of yore
that high degree FREE MAY-SIN
Roosevelt played the 'Left' angle
---while FREE MAY-SIN 'Right'
front Hoover NEVER exposed the
instigations of the 'FED' that brought
on the 'Great Depression'.
We also learn Hoover was a great
admirer of Soviet central planning,
and possibly had a hand in drawing
their Five Year Plans ---ALLLL of
which were designed in the States
by industrial architecht Alfred Khan.
Seems even Hoover's RED CROSS
mission to bring relief to Russia after
the engineered famines of 1922
was a front.
MOST of the food went
to the Bolsheviks ---and 'other' ties
were laid down.
As our current Globalist RED China
sellout, TREASON and EUGENICS OP
ramps up ----it's GOOD to remember.
---------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012----------------
RCV| 12.8.11 @ 9:55PM
Great idea: why don't you guys have the GOP run a campaign attacking FDR and tying him to Obama? That would be really smart!
Even Ronald Reagan had the good political sense to express admiration for FDR.
Purpleguy| 12.9.11 @ 12:55AM
Funny, good one..!
Systems Analyst| 12.10.11 @ 12:03PM
Remember this:
Parasite(s): An organism that takes what it wants and needs from a living host(s). There is no Symbioses here the parasite(s) gives nothing of its own back to the host(s). This leaves the parasite(s) free to 1-Disguise its true intentions from its host(s). 2-Provide an effective defense for itself should it be discovered. 3-Increase its numbers so that even if it is discovered it can overwhelm it host(s).Except in the case of Politicians/Government they also take from host(s) who are dead! Think about it....