The War on Prosperity During the Summer of Recovery

As Barack Obama parties with his vacuous, celebrity friends, with galas at the White House and elsewhere, the American middle class sinks further into the morass he has created with his doomed policies. If FDR had his WPA as part of his New Deal and LBJ had his War on Poverty as part of his Great Society, then surely BHO has his War on Prosperity as part of his Fundamental Transformation of America during his Summer of Recovery.

Not since the time of Nero has so much idle fiddling taken place while a society burned. It has gone well beyond incompetence. It is even beyond tone-deaf tinkering. This man is deliberately trying to destroy the nation he was elected to lead. Why? Because he hates it; it's that simple. He looks at the United States of America as a limitless pot of gold in the hands of a few, who stole it from the less fortunate over the last five hundred years.

Obama's insistence on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on the most productive among us is testimony to his malevolent ignorance. He really believes that those who have accumulated more than he deems necessary are evil and must be plundered by government to the greatest degree possible. Hence, his call, during a deep and severe recession, for a tax increase on the only people who are in a position to create jobs. Instead of encouraging our entrepreneurs, Obama seems bent on destroying capitalism, which he despises, and decimating the working class, whom he desires to see in bondage to government.

Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting Thomas Jefferson's admonition that a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have. Obama seems determined to pattern his administration on just such a premise. As an educated man, he should know that big government never provides people with liberty. Ask yourself: When was the last time big government set someone free — anyone, rich, poor or in between? Such a scenario has never existed in the history of mankind.

The prosperous among us, most of whom have worked hard to accumulate their wealth, are enslaved by the taxes that gobble up much of the resources that would otherwise go to create new jobs. Those in the middle class likewise are victimized by higher taxation because they have less to spend on other things and therefore the economy suffers. Stealing from the rich through confiscatory tax rates only profits government, not the middle class. And the poor are destroyed in body, mind and spirit by a system that says, "You can't make it on your own, so we'll have to take care of you." When job-producing wealth is stolen from the private sector by government, everyone suffers. Regardless of what "class" you fit into, how is your life enhanced when government robs from someone else?

I would like to believe that the upcoming off-year election is going to truly change things, but then I hear Republican leaders like John Boehner, who will likely be the next Speaker of the House, tell the Sunday morning talking heads that he is willing to compromise and accept a partial continuation of the Bush tax cuts if that's all he can get out of the president. Anyone who has ever bargained for anything knows that you don't start out the negotiations by saying, "I want to pay $100 for your widget, but I'm willing to pay more." Likewise, the seller never starts the process by weighing in with, "Well, I want $250 for my widget, but I'll take as little as $100."

Similarly, Boehner should not start the bidding with a statement like, "I'll vote for whatever tax cuts I can get," when the reality is that tax increases on anyone — especially the prosperous, especially at a time like this — are a prescription for economic catastrophe.

It might be a cliché, but no poor person ever gave me a job. Wealthy people — or at least prosperous upper middle class small business owners — have given me every job I have ever had in my life. If you think about it, the same is true for you.

Perhaps if Barack Obama had ever had a job, he would understand that principle, too.