Obama’s War on Wealth

April 20, 2011 By 14 Comments

Barack Obama unsheathed his key campaign weapon for 2012: Tax America’s millionaires and billionaires and thereby solve our national debt. It won’t work for several reasons.

A little-publicized finding should shock Obama supporters: The president’s approval among the poorest Americans is only 48 percent, according to an April 13 Gallup poll, leaving him with less-than-majority approval rating among all income brackets in Gallup’s presidential approval surveys.

While some people resent the high pay and bonuses earned by Wall Street bankers, they have no resentment about the many millions in riches paid to some who star in movies, or silly TV shows, or who play pro basketball, which Obama loves so much.

Moreover, study after study has shown that those without a lot of money don’t resent the rich. Many hope they will be wealthy some day. And while Obama is eager to brainwash the gullible public into believing that the “rich” are under-taxed, in truth, they pay more than their “fair share.”

The Adjusted Gross Income for those earning $250,000 is 21.2 percent of the total tax of $7.6 trillion. On total tax returns, the “rich” paid 43 percent. So, those in the $250,000-plus bracket still are bearing twice the tax load, relative to their income, according to 2009 preliminary IRS figures and calculations of the National Taxpayer Union.

This doesn’t stop many Democrats from practicing demagoguery: claiming that the Republicans want to deprive poor children of sustenance and hurt old and young women with their budget.

Slamming the responsible Republican plan to shrink the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt, Obama April 13 blustered: “There’s nothing serious about a [budget reduction] plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.” That was his rude contention in his speech as his purported and distorted response to the debt crisis.

Speaking as if he were the purveyor of all truths, Obama declared:

“In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle class Americans. But we cannot afford a trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.” His lower lip curled down in defiance.

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About

Tait Trussell is a national award-winning writer, former vice-president of the American Enterprise Institute and former Washington correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

  • Fred Dawes

    THE WAR ON SO CALLED WEALTH Will soon be over for one reason this country as you know it will end within the next 6 months.
    Just look at the Budget report, its not just pie in the sky its for real the money world we live in is dead,dead, the third worlds people have eaten away at it for 50 years and we will understand what hell is REAL SOON MY Son's.

  • geez

    Same old crap from the socialist left. They want to take over everything and the wealthy are in their way. We need to send this ManChild back to his roots, his true homeland in Kenya, where he can finish his fathers vision without interference from the hatemongers and that pesky constitution. How anyone could have voted for this community organizer/junior senator I'll never know… and yes clinton's another junior senator loser. I'm sure she takes her girlfriend on all the trips she's been having to take. I'm sorry, was that insensitive???

  • jaythehistorian

    The moronic Muslim Obama is clearly an anti-white racist. On a practically daily basis, he and his useful idiots attempt to rob whites and Asians of their wealth and transfer it to his "people" . An obvious example is his proposal to deal with racial "health disparities". Blacks have higher rates of some diseases because of their lifestyle. Whites aren't holding a gun to the heads of blacks forcing them to go to McDonald's or engage in other highly unhealthy behavior. However his proposal is among other others is to force medical schools to accept unqualified black students. This would have the effect of limiting the numbers of white and Asian doctors and greatly increasing black doctors. This would increase the average incomes of blacks which is what the "racial disparity" nonsense is really about.

  • Cuban Refugee

    Never before in our history has there been a U.S. president who pitted one group against another in such an overtly antagonistic manner. Always a community organizer, Obama is throwing us into the boxing ring, fomenting hatred of the "have-nots" against the "haves;" but, if we continue on the current economic downward spiral, we all will be poor shmucks and useful idiots who facilitated this takeover of our nation by a gang of radicals. Wealth redistribution? By the time this unconstitutionally-elected usurper is finished with his nefarious task of stealing from Peter to pay Paul, there will not be two rusty pennies to rub together for the masses, but millions of gold coins in his and his cronies' pockets.

    • Taylor

      I love your comment: "Never before in our history has there been a U.S.president who pitted one group against another in such an overtly antagonistic manner." Well said. If Americans DO NOT wake up to this fraud – the United States will cease to exist. I think more people are ON TO HIM than the weasley MSM will say. The polls are skewed ALWAYS in his favor. Just like the unemployment numbers are. I have one question and it has been asked before, but needs to be presented to the voting public at large: Are you better off now than you were BEFORE Obama was elected? I would say that probably 80% or more would say HELL NO!!! Let's get rid of this clown and fraud in the WH and elect somebody that actually loves America.

    • Jim_C

      "Never before in our history has there been a U.S. president who pitted one group against another in such an overtly antagonistic manner."

      Abraham Lincoln? Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

  • MBA NJ

    What did the fools think when they voted for a person who never served out a full term, who had clouds galore about his past, who associated with known anti-Americans who are dead set on destroying America. In any other realm this person would have been labeled a radical destructionist whose motives were clearly to destroy our country from within. Where are all those smart "American" politicians who are sworn to protect the Constitution? We are doomed as a society in the same way that the Trojan Horse was allowed to destroy that culture until finally their name is now associated only with preventing birth while having short term fun.

  • conservative4ever

    Our Redistributor-in-Chief really loves the class warfare, doesn't he? I am not fooled. He hates us (the middle class) just as much as the rich.

  • Sick&tired

    Obama? Reality? Who are you kidding?

  • Wesley69

    For a president that said he would be the president of all the people, the Great Unifier, Obama likes to demonize his opponents. What better enemy, than to pick on the wealthy and use class warfare to divide and conquer. A Saul Alinsky disciple to the hilt.

  • lizaz

    Poor obama….he's starting to sweat….this would affect thousands of small businesses and would be a real loser toward his campaign for reelection in 2012. Keep at it!!! We''ll be voting accordingly!!!!

  • Stephen_Brady

    And remember that the "wealthy" are not truly "the wealthy". Most of the people that Obama is targeting are small businessmen, who hire 70% of the people who work in America. Attacking them with a tax hike will cause businesses to shut down and people to lose their jobs.

    The truly wealthy have tax lawyers and accountants to shield their assets and help them survive any tax increase. What does the owner of coffee shop on "Main Street" have to protect him (especially if his business has a taxable income of $250k per year, or more)? Certainly not the taxer-in-chief …

  • http://rightasusual.blogspot.com LindaS

    We need a new alternative minumum tax. All adults who are living outside of their parents home need to pay something – start the floor at 2 % of income, for the lowest income. That would mean that welfare recipients, disabled, retired, unemployed – all – would owe something.

    That would give them a stake in the system. Make it a rule that for every 1% the top bracket is assessed over the current amount, the bottom rung has to pay .02% more (and graduated upward). That would give them reason to pause when considering adding a heavier tax burden on the wealthy.

  • geoplaten

    One tweak I recommend: you should say "Obama's War on OTHER'S Wealth".

    After all, you don't see him redistributing his own millions, nor the wealth of his supporters. It's always the other guy. That's the essence of modern liberalism: it's the other guy's fault.