Socialism

No wonder he's so worshipped by the hardcore left. The junior senator from Illinois has decided that we middle and lower class citizens need another stimulus check to help offset the rising cost of gasoline. Let's forget, for a moment, that Obama is on the record as supporting high gas prices as a way to force us from our 'national addiction' to oil, and look, instead, at this latest position he's decided to espouse. By now we all know that the few positions he actually takes are not to be viewed as 'permanent', but subject to change at the request of conservative critics.

I'm in favor of what President Bush did this past spring - putting tax money back into the hands of taxpayers is always a good thing. But what Obama has proposed is, well, basically it's theft. He's decided on the classic populist play of robbing from the rich to give to the poor. He's actually proposing that the government take money from the profits of oil companies and give it to us poor folks. Now, I'd love to get a $1000 check, but not at the expense of seeing this nation reduced to socialism. Our current tax code is already as close as you can get to redistribution of wealth*, but this is blatant, outright socialism.

Of course, the ignorant voter just loves this stuff. They have no idea that most of the stockholders in major oil companies like Exxon-Mobile are ordinary, middle class citizens just like them. They're also totally oblivious to the fact that companies like Google, Microsoft, and many others have profit margins much higher that any oil company. Where's the outrage against these companies making a killing, while we 'suffer' through a poor economy? Why is it that any company that takes advantage of capitalism and makes a profit is 'evil'?

The bottom line is that without rich folks, we po' folks wouldn't have jobs. Forcing companies to hand over more of their profits is not just un-American, it will only give said companies more reason to raise prices, lay off employees, or find a cheaper place to make their products (China), causing further recession. Barry Obama is nothing but an old-school Marxist in a shiny new package. His reasoning is no different from any other liberal - let the government (the most inept, inefficient bureaucracy ever known) solve all of our problems at the expense of freedom and individual responsibility.

*According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 10% of income earners in this country paid 72.7% of the total Federal Income Tax burden in 2005. That's right, of the total income taxes paid to the federal government, 72% of that amount was paid by only 10% of the total population. The top 1% of earners pay almost 40% of the total tax burden, and the bottom 32% pay nothing. (The handy chart above courtesy of The Heritage Foundation.)