Redistribution of wealth through taxation of the top earners and handouts to the bottom is a hallmark of socialist economic theory. So why does Barack Obama and his surrogates chafe so mightily when the word “socialism” comes up, especially when Obama takes exactly that stance on the campaign trail?
Witness this encounter with a plumber who would see his taxes go up under an Obama administration:
In case you missed it, here’s the transcript:
Unnamed Plumber: “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?”
Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
No, Sen. Obama doesn’t want to punish anybody’s success. All he’s going to do is confiscate the fruits of that success through taxation, and hand them out to those who either didn’t succeed or didn’t even try. In modern political parlance, we call that “welfare.” In classical economic theory, we call it “socialism.”
Either way, it’s tough to dress up Obama’s tax plan as anything other than “socialism,” whether you call it “spreading the wealth around” or not. Maybe that’s why the word “socialism” gets so many goats in the Obama camp.
Instapundit, Miz Michelle, and Power Line have more.
UPDATE: “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Earned”… it’s the rich creamy goodness of WealthSpread! (H/T People’s Cube.)
UPDATE II: The plumber is no longer “Unnamed Plumber.” His name is Joe Wurzelbacher, he was just interviewed on Neil Cavuto’s “Your World,” and he was plenty unsettled by his conversation with Sen. Obama. (Yes, he dejectedly used the “S” word as well.)
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