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Political Hay
Obama and the Pirates
The latest proof that President Obama is a freebooting Marxist.
Everything in this column will be established by logical proof, as in geometry. There will be no name calling, or mere assertion.
You probably heard again last night that President Obama still thinks “the rich,” a crass term implying low class social envy, do not pay their “fair share.” He has been barnstorming America saying precisely that for his more than four years in office now. But the indisputable facts from official government sources say otherwise.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, compiled from income tax returns, as reported by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that in 2009 the top 1% of income earners paid 39% of all federal income taxes. That was three times their share of national income at 13%. It was also more than double the 17.6% of federal individual income taxes paid by the top 1% when President Reagan entered office in 1981, and all the historic tax rate cutting began.
Yet, the IRS data also shows that in 2009 the middle class, as represented by the middle 20% of income earners, paid just 2.7% of all federal income taxes as a group on net, while earning 15% of the national income. As a result, the top 1% paid almost 15 times as much in federal income taxes as the entire middle 20%, even though the middle 20% earned more income.
And this was before all the tax rate increases on “the rich” at the beginning of this year. With the expiration of the Bush tax cuts only for “the rich,” and the Obamacare tax increases going into effect, top federal income tax rates on the rich rose nearly 20%, the tax rate on capital gains rose nearly 60%, the tax rate on dividends rose nearly 60%, the Medicare payroll tax rate rose 62%, and the death tax was permanently restored.
Moreover, the bottom 40% of income earners as a group on net, instead of paying some taxes to support government programs, services and benefits, were paid cash by the IRS in 2009 equal to 10% of all federal income taxes that year.
The official IRS data also shows that in 2009 the top 20% of income earners, which included those earning more than $74,000, paid 94% of federal individual income taxes. That was 85% more than the share of national income they earned, almost double. The selfish bastards in that top 20% earned just over half of all the income in the country at 51%. Is it fair that they earn so much more than the bottom 20%, which earned almost nothing? Well, I guess that’s what happens when the top 20% includes nearly 6 times as many full time workers as the bottom 20%.
Marxist Principles
Any normal American
would say that such an income tax system is more than fair, or that
“the rich” actually pay more than their fair share. So what is
wrong with President Obama? Why does he keep saying that the rich
do not pay their fair share? Is he ignorant? Wouldn’t somebody in
his Administration tell him that his own Administration’s data show
otherwise?
President Obama’s belief that “the rich” still do not pay their fair share can only be explained on the basis of Marxist principles. To a Marxist, the top 1% earning anything more than the middle class is not fair, no matter how they earned it, fairly or not. So “the rich” are not paying their fair share as long as they are left with more than they “need,” as in a true communist system. This is the only logical explanation of Obama’s rhetoric, and it is fully consistent with Obama’s entire background, and his own published writings.
Notice that Obama kept saying that “the rich” don’t need the Bush tax cuts. That rhetoric follows the most basic Marxist principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
For anyone who insists that Obama is only a liberal, and not a Marxist, what is your explanation of why Obama persists in saying that “the rich” do not pay their fair share, in the face of the overwhelming official data to the contrary? Are you saying he is stupid? The best that can be said for Obama is that anyone who thinks we should increase federal income taxes on “the rich” still more is maybe a pirate rather than a Marxist. Perhaps the Obama logo should be replaced by a skull and crossbones, with a tricorner pirate hat on top.
Bad Karma for the Middle Class, Working People, and the
Poor
Good tax policy is guided by what
is necessary to maximize economic growth, not by what individual
taxpayers may “need.” The middle class, working people and the poor
benefit far more from economic growth than they ever could hope to
from redistribution. That is proved by the entire 20th century,
where the standard of living of American workers increased by more
than 7 times, through sustained, rapid economic growth.
Workers could never have gained by 7 times by pirating still more from “the rich.” Raising all tax rates on savings and investment, as under President Obama’s tax policy, to increase government benefits for those not working, is a perfect formula for plummeting not increasing living standards. Savings and investment to create new businesses, or expand existing businesses, is the foundation for the creation of jobs. It is also the foundation for increasing wages and incomes for the middle class, working people, and the poor.
New capital equipment financed by new savings and investment increases the productivity of workers. Workers are far more productive with computerized, mechanized, steam shovels, for example, than with mere hand shovels. That increased productivity provides the funds to pay workers more. The increased demand for labor resulting from that increased savings and investment also bids up the wages of working people to the level of their productivity. This just shows that under capitalism, capital and labor are complementary, not adversarial, exactly contrary to the misunderstanding of Marxists.
Increasing marginal tax rates on savings and investment, however, will mean less of it, not more. The result will be fewer jobs, and lower wages, which is just what we have experienced so far under President Obama. During Obama’s first term, unemployment was over 8% and above for the longest period since the Great Depression, and that only begins to illustrate the Obama unemployment crisis. Moreover, despite all of Obama’s rhetoric championing the middle class, median household incomes declined by 7.3% (a month’s worth of wages) during his first term, even faster after the recession supposedly ended in 2009.
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
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Robbins Mitchell| 2.13.13 @ 6:18AM
"Fair" is whatever Barokeydoke determines it to be based on his stunted little intellect and ideological prejudices...plus,I suspect his being black and the product of a 3rd world culture probably aggravates this syndrome
Jack in Wi| 2.13.13 @ 6:41AM
The number of rich people has been declining almost every year since 2007. How is Obama going ro get any milk from barren or non existent cows? He is a marxist and I blame the Republicns for not putting up better campaigns against him. We need a real opposition in this country not a bunch of brain dead country clubbers and neocons, pushing endless wars and endless bailouts. Where are any articulate conservatives? Rubio sure isn't one.
Solo| 2.13.13 @ 10:08AM
I have to agree, in part, with Jack here.
I am sick and damned tired of watching virtually all republicans genuflecting and groveling to the false language of the left in the democrat party.
"My good friend, ____" and "My esteemed colleague ____" while the democrat bastards are systematically destroying our way of life and the future for our children.
The repubs won't even utter the word "socialist" when referring to democrats, much less use the more accurate description, "Marxist" to describe this disgrace of a President.
It nearly made me physically sick last night to watch Lindsey Grahm smiling and glad-handing Janet Incompetano last night at the SOTU speech.
There are few things in this modern age more sinister and foreboding than a smiling democrat...except, perhaps, seeing a republican smiling along with them.
Enough already!!
The democrat party is the enemy of all this nation once stood for and should be treated as such 24/7/365.
"Cry Havoc...and let slip the dogs of war".
The first-best thing we can do for our national security and well-being is to purge our republic of the enemy within-- because so long as they are allowed to walk among us unmolested, we are weakened before the foreign enemies who wish us ill.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 10:55AM
It's okay to agree with Jack. (Although, I wouldn't recommend making a habit of it)
Even Hitler was right, sometimes.
Ya liked your VW Bug, didn't ya!
Moe Blotz| 2.13.13 @ 11:01AM
Also the autobahns gave Ike the impetus to build our national defence and commerce interstate highways.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 2:50PM
And, if you're Jack In Wi?
He locked up the Jews, and gassed them.
Moe Blotz| 2.13.13 @ 11:00AM
Neither are you, Jack.
Stephie| 2.13.13 @ 1:34PM
Go on Jack! For once, I agree with all of your post!
Rubio was a disappointment and Rand Paul was right on the money but of course, pretty much ignored. The repubs, as Ted Nugent said after the SOTU Show, have no scr*t*m. They aren't going to fight for us or our nation. Something else has to happen.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 3:05PM
Something else will happen.
Our Cities will be overrun by Eric Holder's People, and be burnt to the Ground.
Our Union Factories will Shut Down.
Our Blue States will Implode, Financilly. Their Job Creators beatin feet to Greener Pastures in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Asia.
Strikes will Cripple the Metrpolitan Areas. Obamacare, the EPA, and Unfunded Government Mandates will Cripple the Economy.
The Closing of Coal Fired Electric Generating Power Plants, and the continuing Illegal Drilling Moratoriums, will drive Energy Costs through the roof
Social Security and Medicare will Implode. And, Unemployment, Medicare, the Fed printing Money, and Endless Tax Increases will bring this Country to the Brink of Revolution.
I hope that helps.
Pecos Pete| 2.13.13 @ 5:16PM
Tim: Thank you. Short and sweet and all rolled up into one ball of wax. You nailed it.
OP4| 2.13.13 @ 7:07AM
"The American people... never voted for redistribution over economic growth in the past"
Uh, FDR? The New Deal?
RABart| 2.13.13 @ 7:54AM
No, I don't really think Obama is stupid. His largest character flaw, among many, is that he believes that we are stupid and that we believe all of his obvious lies. He is truly delusional and dangerous at the same time. He is basicly a despicable human being. I can only hope he gets his well deserved come-up-ance by someone or some event. That occurance cannot come soon enough.
Nancy in NC| 2.13.13 @ 9:24AM
Dr. Carson basically gave him his "due" at the prayer breakfast, but the MSM won't be pointing that out any time soon. How fitting it came from someone his own color, but from an entirely different background. Instead of a Communist mother, Dr. Carson had a God fearing mother who believed her children could succeed without the nanny state. And they proved her right.
Unfortunately there are few mothers left like Dr. Carson's. Most are beholden to the nanny state for their very existance and would certainly never clean toilets so their children could escape the government plantation. That would be below them...after all, don't we have a king that tells them that day after day? Those unable to read expect a free obama phone and subsistance from a government who expect nothing in return but their vote. How cheaply they sell their soul.
I see nothing changing in this country until we get the government off our backs and let the poor experience reality for their choices. That's not cruel at all; that's a kindness.
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:09PM
Its always interesting to see the LEFTs priorities. Many were just mocking the fact the Seal who killed Bin Laden is now unemployed, without insurance, and partially disabled. They criticized him for resigning before he was vested for retirement. Yeah, too bad he wasn't just some random gangbanger welfare brat - then they could support full benefits for him.
Kwan| 2.13.13 @ 9:05AM
Obama's continuous rantings about the rich are obviously an effort to fire up da peoples revolution to attain equality. Similar to any leftist ghetto demagogue Obama tells his peeps: Dem dere folks gots it an wees all wants it. The essential flaw in Marxist ideology is that it eliminates incentive along with freedom. Why make an effort to get ahead when the State will just confiscate what it determines is in excess of what you need. It's all about creating a great collective of hapless serfs subsisting on the bare essentials, but still happy knowing that Obama and the Commiecrats have finally brought equality to the United States.
Russel| 2.13.13 @ 10:33AM
Reason why the moniker " The Great Divider ' is catching on and sticking . Divide and conquer . Create class envy , use the race card to keep the GOPhers in DC under the carpet , and give away as much as possible . " I don't have a spending problem " . No , what you mean is you don't have a problem with spending . The Sheep in this country are in for a very rude awakening .
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:09PM
It is indeed a tragedy that petty envy and jealousy has become a political platform. My, how our country has fallen!
JimH| 2.13.13 @ 10:16AM
People keep referring to BO as Marxist. Certainly he spouts Marxian catch phrases but, as a number of people have pointed out he governs more as a Fascist. Maybe a better comparison is to liken his administration to that of Putin’s Russia, which can best be termed a kleptocracy where politically connected oligarchs try to use the state against each other and government officials seek to enrich themselves by selling their influence to the highest bidder.
Solo| 2.13.13 @ 10:37AM
Agreed!
Interesting, is it not, that Barry Soetoro borrows from the worst of all the "ism's" combined together.
It's as though he's gorging himself at some buffet of failed and otherwise evil menu selections and then vomiting it all in the face of liberty and the American dream.
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:06PM
That was a great post Solo. I am going to use your phrase on "gorging himself".
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 10:51AM
The people who claim that this Guy - Who was Born to a Muslim Father, Raised in Muslim Indonesia's Muslim Schools and Mosques, Adopted by his Muslim Stepfather, and Proclaimed on National Television that "The Muslim call to Prayer is the most Beautiful Sound in the World", ISN'T A MUSLIM?
Are the very same people who now insist that this Guy: Who's Father was Marxist, who's Mother and Grandparents were Communists, who's first Mentor was a Communist, who's second Mentor was a Marxist, who has Domestic Terrorist "Friends" who are Marxists, who wrote in his Book that he "Sought Out the Marxist Professors when I got to College", and has dedicated his Adult Life to the Teachings of the Uber Marxist: Saul Alinsky, and his book - Rules for Radicals - is not a Marxist.
This has gone way past Orwell's wildest imaginations, when he wrote 1984.
Denial, is no longer just a River in Egypt.
It's become a way of life for about half the Population of Bizzarro World.
The Country previously known as: The USA.
JimH| 2.13.13 @ 12:50PM
Not to say that people can’t simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs, but a real Marxist could not also be a Muslim as Marxism is atheistic and Islam requires one’s ultimate obedience to God, not the state or the will of the proletariat. I guess it does not really matter. Regardless of what he says, it is enough to see that BO embodies the worst of several authoritarian strains of Stateism.
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:04PM
Actually, Muslims were Nazis during WWII. Islam and Socialism are both totalitarian ideologies and can actually go together.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 3:10PM
They are one and the same.
One worships a God of Death.
And, the other one worships a Godless State of Death.
Same thing.
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:12PM
TLP, You nailed it. The problem isn't whether he was born outside the US - the problem is where he was reared during his formative years. Obama is not an American in his internal culture or worldview.
Dave Williams| 2.13.13 @ 11:07AM
All completely true, and all completely useless in dealing with leftist drones, who are ruled by FEEEEEEEEELINGS, and utterly impervious to rational thought. In this regard, Oprah has done more damage to this country than islamic terrorists, and I do not say that as a joke.
Stephie| 2.13.13 @ 1:41PM
With soft lenses ~
I could never stand her show.
Ronsch| 2.13.13 @ 12:48PM
Sadly, though, Mr. Ferrara's information will never reach the low-information/no-information voters. They cannot comprehend it, with their next-to-no- education and lack of self-worth.
delahaya| 2.13.13 @ 1:01PM
What a great article! Unfortunately, the Left will just publish some paper made up out of whole cloth like they did with the federal pay versus private pay statistics.
cicero| 2.13.13 @ 1:16PM
The president can't possibly believe what he spouted last night. Giving a speach like that, and knowing that everything he said was false only demonstrates the utter contempt in which he holds those who he was speaking to - the American people.
1ConservativeUSA| 2.13.13 @ 2:28PM
We take Obama and his false arguments too seriously, thus giving him undue credibility.
The real response is to prove that his speeches are simply lies, feel good double talk and mollification of the stupid and weak.
How to do this, though. It's not an easy task, trying to convince the stupid and weak with reason and facts, but it is a necessary one.
RJ| 2.14.13 @ 2:31AM
Much of modern government is "legalized" thievery and goes beyond the scope of legitimate government. How can a government not become corrupt when people agree that government should be allow to benefit some at the expense of others rather than treating all citizens equally under the law? In the race to live off of others, more and more power is taken from the citizens and goes to the state.
"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." - Bertrand de Jouvenel, page 72 of The Ethics of Redistribution
Cuffs| 2.14.13 @ 1:28PM
And when America has been brought to her knees,
where will Obama be? I suspect he and his fat ass
wife will be luxuriating in their $30M Hawaii
mansion, etc. and laughing at the whole lot of
us. Obama cares for nothing but his own
aggrandizement. When will the american people
understand that 99% of all politicians don't give
a rat's behind about the Constitution or the people; they do care about themselves and
that is all ye need to know.
JONVIL| 2.15.13 @ 12:56PM
All too depressingly true and serves the enemies of America well. The conservative voters have been burned so many times by self-defined 'conservative' politicians that we simply do not know whom we can trust. What's really depressing is that anyone who seeks a political office is probably lying about everything he claims to stand for
OregonBuzz| 2.15.13 @ 10:55AM
"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." Vladimir Lenin
Marc Jeric| 2.15.13 @ 10:45PM
President Obama is a Marxist Muslim born in Mombasa, Kenya. It is now confirmed 100%.
1) Both birth certificates were forged by clever computer imaging – the short form one and the long form one. The long form one was issued after the short-form one was shown to be a forgery and shows the hospital’s new name from 1971 – ten years after his birth.
2) His Selective Service card is a forgery with a forged date; all SS cards show US Postal Service date with 4 numbers for the year; his card shows only two numbers – 80 – obtained by cutting out the date 2008 and reversing 08 into 80. (cont.)
Marc Jeric| 2.15.13 @ 10:46PM
3) Immigration records for the week of his birth are missing – destroyed; all such records are complete for at least 70 years – except for the first 10 days from August 1 to 10, 1961, when he was born, and when his grandmother and mother returned to Honolulu from Kenya with the baby.