Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Spreading the Wealth

This business with Joe the Plumber and attacking Obama for "spreading the wealth" is quite ridiculous. Anybody who has ever read, Adam Smith – the father of Capitalism – will know that Smith fully understands and believes that wealth should be spread.

“It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
- from, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Moreover, the last 8 years under Bush have been an example of taking the little wealth possessed by the lower and middle class and spreading it onto the wealthy. The income gap in America is extremely high. This contributes to so many of society's ills - including more crime and worse public health. This ends up costing all people even more money.

Hey McCain supporters and Reagan lovers, the reality is that Obama's pledged tax rate for the top 5% of income earners is lower than Reagan's. If the tax rate on the wealthy was good enough under Reagan, don't you think a lower tax rate than Reagan's is fine?

The reality is that (rougly speaking) Reagan increased our national debt by over $1.5 trillion. Bush 1 by over $2 trillion in just 4 years, Clinton by another $1.5 trillion, and Bush 2 and his Republican Congress by a whopping $5 trillion. What happened to the Republicans belief in limited government. We all have to pay for this mess. The next 8 years are going to be tough, as Bush 2 has caused the collapse of the greatest economy in the world.

For those who have worked hard to elect Obama, we know that as hard as it was for him, a black man in a country founded on the backs of slaves, to win against the wife of a popular two-term president in a primary, and to now beat (we hope) a Republican multi-millionaire (not self-made) with 8 homes and 20+ years in the Senate, that these two tasks are extremely easy compared to the work that must be done starting Nov. 5th to clean up this mess created by Bush 2. What a colossal failure of leadership by Bush 2. The next 8 years are going to be extremely hard, so let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.