http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=53687
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Dems' war on 'the rich'
By David Limbaugh
© 2007

One of the first actions the new Democratic congressional majority took

was to change legislative rules, implemented by the 1994
Republican-controlled Congress, that made it difficult to raise taxes.
I suppose the Democrats' apparent plan to increase taxes on "the rich"
won't count as a broken campaign promise not to raise taxes since "the
rich" aren't entitled to any rights, only to scorn, jealousy and
resentment.


The Contract with America provision required a supermajority, or 60
percent, to increase taxes, but the Democrats' rule change will now
permit a tax hike on a simple majority vote. It will also give the
Democrats an advantage in preventing Republicans from extending the
Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire in a few years. Democrats
removed any doubt that this was an accidental development when they
rejected a motion by Minority Leader John Boehner to bar the rule
change.


It would be one thing if Democrats were solely motivated here by fiscal

concerns: balancing the budget, eliminating the deficit and reducing
the national debt. But we know better than that because they understand

that the president's tax cuts, like President Kennedy's and President
Reagan's, increased federal revenues.


Moreover, they can't help but realize that President Bush's
tax-cut-driven economic boom has now caused dramatic reductions in the
deficits. But to admit such things would be to forfeit class warfare as

a demagogic weapon, one of their best remaining tools to bludgeon
heartless Republicans.


The very idea that upper-income producers are undertaxed is ludicrous
on its face. Democrats can't possibly believe that the rich don't pay
their fair share of the revenues when the top 1 percent of income
producers - according to 2004 tax data cited by economist Larry
Kudlow - pays some 37 percent of federal income taxes and the lowest
40 percent pays virtually no taxes and is even subsidized.


But it's not the inequitable distribution of the tax burden that really

bothers liberals. If so, they'd be carping at the lower-income earners
for not paying their fair share.


What bugs them is the "inequitable" distribution of wealth. But if they

were candid in confessing this, they would be hard-pressed to explain
their supposed affinity for economic freedom.


Liberals insist they believe as strongly in the American dream as the
rest of us, but routinely demonize those who succeed in attaining it.
They loudly profess their allegiance to capitalism, but resent the
inequitable monetary results it produces. Isn't that what John Edwards'

two-America's theme is all about?


Even robust economic growth resulting in across-the-board increases in
income doesn't satisfy the glass-half-empty liberal mindset. It doesn't

matter how prosperous we are; it doesn't matter how much better people
are doing across the board. As long as significant disparities exist
among income producers, the system, according to liberals, is failing.
To them, you see, the system is not supposed to guarantee freedom or
equal opportunity, but equal outcomes.


They say they believe in equality of opportunity - I heard no less a
liberal lion than Ted Kennedy claim recently that "opportunity" was a
hallmark of liberalism - but strongly object when that opportunity
yields unequal outcomes.


The unvarnished truth is that you don't really believe in equality of
opportunity if you feel compelled to empower Big Brother to alter the
results, after the fact, that equal opportunity makes possible. You are

not a free-market enthusiast if you believe the tax code is a vehicle
for redistributing wealth.


Besides, hasn't history repeatedly demonstrated that governmentally
enforced schemes to equalize outcomes result in suppressing both
freedom and prosperity? Didn't some of the earliest English settlers in

America learn, the hard way, that socialism destroys the incentive to
produce, dampens the human spirit and results, ultimately, in less for
everyone?


One is entitled to wonder when enough is enough or if there exists a
point beyond which Democrats would not go, if they could get away with
it, to equalize the distribution of wealth in this country. In a
similar vein, one might reasonably wonder whether any amount of failed
results would cause liberals to re-evaluate the wisdom - and even
fairness - of their proposals.


The answer is "no." Just look at education and the war on poverty. For
liberals, supposedly good intentions always trump results.

crap snipped

Move along folks. Nothing to see here.