-
IRS Union Chief Stonewalls
May 21, 2013 | 56 comments
-
Obama and the IRS: The Smoking Gun?
May 20, 2013 | 55 comments
-
The Liberal Union Behind the IRS
May 16, 2013 | 146 comments
-
Cumulus Media: Suicide of a Company?
May 14, 2013 | 64 comments
-
From Bimbos to Benghazi
May 9, 2013 | 162 comments
The Obama Watch
The Redistributor-in-Chief
Constitutional rights, free speech, religion, jobs, poverty, and everything else are up for grabs.
“I actually believe in
redistribution.”
— Barack Obama, Loyola
University, 1998
Shall we play a game?
Which of these things doesn’t belong?
Coal.
Health care.
Jobs.
Religion.
Movies.
Gas Prices.
Poverty.
Answer? They all belong.
They all belong to the redistributionist World of Obama.
Let’s work our way through these items one by one for a glimpse of what Obama’s re-distributionism has in fact meant.
• Coal: Alpha Coal Company announced this week that they are shutting down 8 mines and cutting 1,200 employees. CEO Kevin Crutchfield says this is necessary in part because of “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”
• Health Care: Welch Allyn, the medical device firm, announced the other day that “it will reduce its workforce by 10 percent over the next three years in reaction to the 2.3 percent medical device tax slated to begin in January 2013 in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.” This from a report at Health Finance News.
• Jobs: The unemployment rate for August was 8.1%. The 43rd month in a row the unemployment rate was over 8%. Some 368,000 Americans stopped looking for work altogether.
• Religion: Asked if the Obama Justice Department would “never entertain” or “advance” any kind of proposal that would “criminalize speech” against any religion, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez refused to answer.
• Movies: Local authorities swoop down on alleged Innocence of Muslims filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, escorting him from his home after midnight, to meet with federal officers. The Obama White House, the State Department, and the UN Ambassador all blame Nakoula’s video for causing the violence in dozens of countries around the world. The filmmaker goes into hiding.
• Gas Prices: Gas prices skyrocket, eleven cents in one day last Friday.
• Poverty: The nation’s poverty rate has increased to 15.1% from 14.3%. While fresh statistics are due next month, the rate is expected to increase. This increase, said CBS News, represents “the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years since such estimates have been published by the U.S. Census Bureau.” The Median Household Income of Americans has decreased.
So again. What was it that Mr. Obama said on that tape?
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (39) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Jeffrey Lord
More Articles From The Obama Watch
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/20/the-redistributor-in-chief
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
The Avenger| 9.20.12 @ 6:27AM
It is truly terrifying that the electorate is so easily duped. What, pray tell, will the takers take when the makers stop making. Any Obama sycophant want to answer that overriding question?
Parker| 9.20.12 @ 8:09AM
Well, you know the theory; If the makers stop making, which is clearly already happening -(and the really BIG push began in the 60's) as a result of over-regulation, (the fascist method of destroying private property rights btw) then the gracious state 'takes over the means of production', including the labor of the people, which we are now experiencing. Then begins the careful selection of party membership and the assignment of work projects and career paths. This is the ultimate goal of any fascist or communist political theory when applying their overall, underlying socialist economic theory. But-as I am sure you know, this can never happen in America. After all, we fought and won WWII (destroying fascism) and the Cold-War (destroying communism). So, as the propagandists tell us, clearly, there are No fascists in America, and there are no Communists in America. We destroyed them all and now we can all sing and dance to the American Tail... "There are no cats in America! And the streets are paved with gold!" Sing along with me boys and girls!
Pecos Pete| 9.20.12 @ 8:20AM
Parker: Damn good comment!
Jo Dowless| 9.20.12 @ 11:49AM
M' Lord,
You're hyperventilating again. Have you considered popping a Valium before you compose your hysterical rants?
Even in your photo, that crackpot expression on your face leads me to believe that you are in desperate need of medical treatment for high anxiety.
Believe me, Valium is what you need. It would take the manic, frenetic edge off your tone--give your writing a calmer, more reasonable effect on the reader.
Thanks for considering my request. Hope you are able to relax a little more. Valium is the answer for you.
KyMouse| 9.20.12 @ 2:55PM
Ms. Dowless, please reveal to us, with detailed information, where Mr. Lord is in error.
Or are cheap shots and snide remarks all you can bring to the discussion?
JD| 9.20.12 @ 12:35PM
As important as implementing their agenda is ensuring that the public believes that the Right, not he Left, is getting its way. This ensures that when the public clamors for a new way, they think that the Left, not the Right, is the new way.
Appleby| 9.20.12 @ 6:59AM
So remind me again why none of this was dug up BEFORE y'all elected this sophomore commie and gave him the keys to the vault?
TLP| 9.20.12 @ 9:29AM
Enough of Granma, already.
The problem with these people, and FOR us people, is that this is all they have. This is their Religion. These are not people of Accomplishment. They are people of Envy, who Covet their Neighbor's Possessions, and know that they will never acquire them on their own, so they TAKE THEM.
To each, who don't wanna get off their Ass, til noon. From each, until they decide that Singapore is Lovely this time of Year. And all of the rest of the year, as well.
It's The Law of Diminishing Returns.
What we've seen, under this THING, and his Political and Media Allies, is the Incorporation of the Social Security System's Model, as this Administration's Economc Policy.
When it started out, almost nobody lived to be 65. So, everybody was Paying In, with just a coupla Old Ladies Taking Out. Those numbers have been going in Reverse for Decades, now. And we are now at the point of Unsustanability. In fact, it is now being Intentionally Destroyed, as The One has had All Payments To The Fund SHUT DOWN, for the last Year. The only stream of Income to Social Security - FICA - is the only Tax that he wants to Cut.
Interesting, no?
Unions like to Spread the Wealth. Right up until the Well Runs Dry. And then they blame the Well.
TLP| 9.20.12 @ 9:31AM
We used to have so many Car Companies, and so many Airlines. That made for lots of Jobs. But then the Unions got their Nose under the tent, and Organized Crime got a Stranglehold on the Unions.
America doesn't make things, anymore. Don't take my word for it. Look at the Labels on EVERYTHING.
Long story short: "It's the Well's Fault".
Past is Prologue.
What do we hear from The One They've Been Waiting For, everytime he opens that mouth of his, that a lotta people claim he used to open in The Gay Bars and Bath Houses of Chicago. (Hat Tip WND)
"It's the Rich. The Rich don't pay enough. The Rich don't pay their fair share. People people better cough it up. Wouldn't want a Bus Load of Pant Loads from SEIU, showing up at your House, and Crapping on your Car."
This Country used to be The Mother Load, when it came to The Industrial Revolution. We used to Export Products, the way Purp Exports Bullsh*t every day.
Not anymore.
Once again, a Road to Hell has been built, paved by People who's Lust For Power can only be quenched by Crushing everyone else in to the ground, and who claim that their Intenions are Good.
Just don't blame them.
Blame the Well. (You)
Gary B| 9.20.12 @ 6:33PM
TLP: No one who gets up before 9am believes any of their crap any more. They look straight into the TV camera and claim the law of gravity has been repealed. Then they hire a busload of cheerleaders to push the idea. So, their technique, which used to work, is... they just say stuff. I mean how easy is that?
When I was in high school I went to my father to repeat an astounding claim made by some guy. My father looked at me and said, "Well, can't you say the same thing?" I assumed everyone told the truth. Silly me...
TLP| 9.20.12 @ 6:50PM
I like your comment, so much, that I'm gonna give you a Leg Up on Tomorrow's Contest.
Iran.
Israel.
LORD OF THE RINGS.
Don't Fck it up.
topcat52| 9.22.12 @ 5:10PM
Didn't I just read these comments to another piece? Are you really that full of yourself that you think the entire world want to listen to you? You make some decent points, but you are also incorrect about a number of things. Perhaps I'll see these comments on yet another piece and point those out to you. But right now, I suspect that you're not really listening, you're just mouthing off.
Pecos Pete| 9.20.12 @ 7:15AM
But, it is all Bush's fault. /sarc/
There was never any secret about Obama's past or his intentions about his policies. Idiots voted for Obama and Idiots will continue to vote for Obama.
In the end, King O and his Queen will retire to a life of luxury resulting from his career as a community organizer. We, on the other hand, will be left with debt and chaos.
Where did all those Obama trillion of dollars disappear to?
Anthony| 9.20.12 @ 8:01AM
As I said in another post, if Obozo wins a second term, America is in a state of civil war. Once America goes over the financial cliff, as Bernake knows full well is just around the corner, unlike FDR's prosperity, which took another 8 years, the takers are gonna ask "The One" who's gonna pay now?
And when the day of reckoning comes, well, at least one government agency has connected the dots and has stored up millions of rounds of ammo.
Yes sir, Hope & Change will have morphed into Snatch and Grab.
Von Mises Jr| 9.20.12 @ 8:19AM
It starts with a Depression in 2013, Anthony. Americans are 5% of the world population, and only half pay any Federal Income Tax. Since Obama is a globalist and socialist, that means taxpaying Americans fall into the Top Few Percent worldwide.
So if he is re-elected, why would Obama extend the Bush Tax Cuts to the Middle Class? If you take $70K AGI and account for the tax increases just from the sunset of the Bush rates in January, your taxes go up $400 per month. If you take account for the ObamaCare taxes, it is estimated that a family earning $50K will see taxes increase by about $500 per month.
Once the Depression sets in, then I think you are spot on, Anthony.
Jack London| 9.20.12 @ 8:18AM
Who said of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): “… the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress.”
canuckistani| 9.20.12 @ 2:19PM
Saint Ron said it.
He may have been post-dimentia diagnosis at that point, but he said it.
The income disparity curve inflected after his first budget and has widened every year since. Trickle down nonsense in vivo.
With Pawlenty bailing out with just 7 weeks to go, the American people are waking up to the fact that Saint Ron was wrong, as is Willard.
The (R)ats are sensing this and more departures are expected from the Kolob Kampaign headquarters in Boston.
Louis Jenkins| 9.20.12 @ 10:47AM
Mr. Lord I don't see were cutting the coal producers and the medical device makers off the payroll is re-distribution. It's unemployment. They'll join the millions of others on the dole, and those still left working will contribute to the dole.
But the strange part about it, Obama doesn't know or care what he is doing to America. Soon everyone will be unemployed. And the Federal money presses will continue to roll as only the printers will have jobs. The strange part about Obama's re-election campaign is he makes no statements about his next four years. Only the words forward, we've come too far to turn back, etc., then he blasts Romney. The silence on his next term should make the American people quake in their shoes. I am.
2Anglico| 9.20.12 @ 11:13AM
Redistribution = legal plunder. Taking the property of one American by force (the Law is force) and giving it to another American, TO WHOM IT DOES NOT BELONG, is theft.
The greatest evil to society would be "the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder." Frederic Bastiat, 1850
Where are we now?
canuckistani| 9.20.12 @ 2:25PM
We are living in the greatest country in the world. Warts and all, redistribution worked - especially for the upper class.
The average millionaire is not under the constant threat of kidnapping, robbery nor extortion that is rampant in all other so-called millionaire -friendly states. What they save in taxes is quickly spent on security and a cloistered lifestyle. UnAmerican and depressingly sad.
Show me another market in the world without redistribution that possesses a viable consumer base at all? Give up? It doesn't exist.
Our GDP is 2/3 consumer spending. There's a reason this fact exists.
Who Knows?| 9.20.12 @ 11:14AM
My lord, Mr. Lord---
Let’s deconstruct “redistribute”.
Before the “re”, or “again”, was the “distribute”.
“Distribute” WHAT? There must be something to distribute, eh? Valuable stuff, which can be moved around using tickets to ride, called dollars.
So, FIRST, some humans have to create a “thing”, which others want, or need---gotta survive!
Obama and company are PRETENDING not to know this. And, since so many people, these high productivity times, actually don’t need to create things, THEMSELVES, he finds a ready audience.
I closely read Thomas More’s “Utopia, from 1515. Here’s a crucial part---
“ For when every man GETS as much as he can for himself by one DEVICE or another, the few divide the wealth among themselves and leave want to the rest.”
There you go---no mention of the WORK needed to create wealth.
It’s all about “getting”, aka taking, and “devices”, aka taking, again!
No one EVER built anything, according to Obama.
Who Knows?| 9.20.12 @ 11:22AM
More from Thomas More's Utopia---
“The result generally is that there will be two sorts of people, and their fortunes ought to be interchanged: one sort are useless, but ravenous and wicked, while the other sort are unassuming, modest men who serve the public more than themselves by their daily work.”
What a despicable either-or!
Here, omission, whether by design or ignorance, of the sine qua non or WORK, wreaks havoc on reason.
The next quote takes it to the limit---
“By this I am persuaded that unless private property is entirely done away with, there can be no fair DISTRIBUTION of goods, nor can the world be happily governed. As long as private property remains, the largest and far the best part of mankind will be oppressed with an inescapable load of cares and anxieties.”
Hello, communism!
Obama IS a communist, Marx-Lenin reincarnate.
Indy| 9.20.12 @ 12:07PM
This 1995 video of Obama promoting his book “Dreams From My Father” is revealing, he states in the video, he inherited his fathers dreams. I doubt Dinesh saw this otherwise, he would have included it in his movie. Worth a click…
http://hillbuzz.org/the-collec.....dent-27325
Houdini| 9.20.12 @ 12:21PM
Mr. Lord,
It is really tiring to read about how Obama is a socialist....he's a fing COMMUNIST! Why do you insist on pussyfooting around the truth that is evident to everyone else (save perp and the other trolls).
Boar Hunter| 9.20.12 @ 12:40PM
With apologies Mr. Lord. I agree with Houdini.
JD| 9.20.12 @ 12:46PM
Communist, Socialist, and Fascist are identical in outcomes, but differ in terms of how they manipulate the public.
Under communism, there is no private property.
Under socialism, the government controls every important industry, but lets people have "private" property. However, because government controls everything important, and has unlimited license to requisition private property in support of what's "essential", "private" property is only nominally private. The government essentially tells you what to do with "your" stuff.
Under fascism, government "owns" nothing, but regulates everything. As with socialism, government dictates how property is used to such an extent that it has more control over the disposition of property than the property's nominal "owners".
All three of these systems can allow a government to do absolutely anything it wants, and reserve no untouchable rights for citizens. However, as we progress down the list, the systems become progressively more deceptive. Communism is open - the government makes no effort to disguise its control. Fascism is far more insidious - nominal "private" ownership allows government to deflect blame and, ironically, justify MORE government micromanagement in the name of fixing problems it dishonestly claims are caused by private free will.
This is why smart liberals are not communists or socialists, but rather fascists. Fascism is a system tailor-made to win elections against free market conservatives.
Jack London| 9.20.12 @ 12:41PM
And of course that 'redistribution' quote of Obama's was taken completely out of context.
Meanwhile the real redistribution of wealth in our country has been a grotesque shift from poor to rich over the last 30 years - before then , we all used to share more equally in wealth creation and rising income.
JD| 9.20.12 @ 12:47PM
The rich get richer because foolish leaders think that making our system more complicated and getting government more involved will help the poor. It does the opposite. Complexity benefits the most capable and hurts the rest, and government meddling invites those with resources to meddle in government. We now have a government so involved in the economy that any business that DOESN'T play the lobbying game gets destroyed by those that do.
The fools that get government ever more involved in the economy refuse to entertain the notion that they are the problem, so they glibly blame others for the lobbying and the corruption that their policies make inevitable.
Get government out of the economy completely, and there will be nothing to lobby for. Simplify the tax code and regulatory framework dramatically, and the average American will be able to play the game as well as the exceptional guy.
Houdini| 9.20.12 @ 1:20PM
Amen.
Kingofthenet| 9.20.12 @ 6:18PM
Wealth Redistribution is 'Protection' and forced Conscience for the Wealthy, so the poor don't come to your house and KILL them.
Oldefarte| 9.20.12 @ 7:46PM
My house has "Protection" from a insurance company.....SMITH & WESSON!!!!!!!!!
George S| 9.20.12 @ 12:49PM
Wealth is created when work is done, that is, two people exchange wealth by doing work for each other. When you send a check to the electric utility, you exchange labor (the work you did to earn the money for the electric bill).
Simple, isn't it?
Redistribution can only occur A-F-T-E-R work is done. Just like a mugger who relies on you to work before he can steal your money, government takes the fruits of your labor and gives it to someone else. And that someone else ain't the rich guy, baby.
So what has happened over the past 30 years? Check the federal registry back then and now. There's your answer.
Wealth is exchanged by a free people. Wealth is redistributed by government.
TLP| 9.20.12 @ 6:54PM
Please.
There is NO WAY to take what he said, out of Context.
NONE.
That's Comperable to saying that Hitler's Final Solution was taken out of context.
Why don't you drive to D.C. and SUCK OBAMA'S DICK, and get it over with?
Bill8472| 9.20.12 @ 3:32PM
The Feds went to the moviemaker's house at night to take him "downtown" to answer questions? How KGB of them!
By what right did they do that? By what right do they claim to be able to ask him his bloody name, much less anything else?
What law do they think he's violated?
You know, our officials don't have a Savak working for them. Not yet.
Kingofthenet| 9.20.12 @ 6:15PM
Romney like redistribution too, it's called Reverse Robin-Hood
Oldefarte| 9.20.12 @ 8:48PM
How can one steal from the poor to give to the rich, since the poor don't have anything to steal [and were given what they have by the rich]? Also, you're correctly defining Robin Hood as YA BOY [in tights I might add] !!!!!
Oldefarte| 9.20.12 @ 8:50PM
PS: You are correct about one thing however, in that YA BOY [since Romney is not the POYUS] is the one that is going in "reverse"!!!!
Oldefarte| 9.20.12 @ 7:47PM
http://youtu.be/oM8l3X_7Hkg
Tonyzhao | 9.21.12 @ 3:07AM
We have to admit that Obama's economic policy has been successful. The United States has recovered, Obama will be re-elected President.