I think if there is one thing that most of us should be able to agree on it’s, despite the fact that Barry would like us all to believe that he really is the ardent defender of the needy and less fortunate, he is really anything but. Because if you take the time to closely examine the facts, it’s very quickly that you come to realize something entirely different. Because despite all of the propaganda put out by this administration and its many minions out there in the state-controlled media, income inequality in the United States has gotten worse under the ‘leadership’ of Barry. Remember when he was running for office back in 2008, how he said that he wanted to reduce income inequality and "share the wealth" so that the top income earners would receive a smaller share of the income and the bottom income earners would receive more? It was all part of his plan to "fundamentally transform".
Well, upon his winning the election in 2008 Barry quickly set about to accomplish just that. As all part of his little master plan to wreak as much havoc as possible, Barry proceeded to increase aid to the lowest income earners by extending unemployment benefits, dramatically increasing the food stamp program and eliminating the work requirement for welfare recipients so that they could receive benefits easier and for longer time periods. In addition, he raised the taxes and eliminated some deductions for the top income earners. This massive transfer of income away from those who have actually earned it and toward those, who for whatever reason, have not earned it, was, we were told, supposed to reduce income inequality. So today, 5 years later, we now have nearly 50 Million Americans on Food Stamps and a total of 100 Million Americans now on some form of government ‘assistance’.
Now I feel fairly certain that the majority of those who take the time to peruse these pages would be willing to advocate that we should eliminate all inequality and go toward a system where all workers receive an equal income. After all, this would be the theoretical basis for a communistic system, where people are paid according to need rather than our system where an individual is paid according to the value of their output. However, I’m just as certain that if he thought he could get away with doing so, Barry would, most assuredly, attempt to implement such a scheme. But there are those, oddly enough, described as learned scholars who while not calling for a move to what would be a full-fledged communist system do seem to be advocating a more incremental approach to what they refer to as being a more ‘balanced distribution’ of income.
One such fella, who I can only assume must fancy himself pretty smart, is Joseph Stiglitz. Mr. Stiglitz, like Barry is a Nobel laureate, is someone who is of the opinion that unequal societies are inefficient and tend to have unstable, unsustainable economies. He further argues that income inequality hinders consumption spending and therefore causes "a shortfall in aggregate demand." And according to him what’s needed to fix this problem are higher taxes, particularly for the upper-middle class and up, which, he claims, would help even things out, thereby "unlocking the U.S. economy’s growth potential in a sustainable way." Now I’m no Nobel laureate, but that view seems a bit baffling since higher taxes on the wealthy tends to reduce investment and therefore slow the economy. It would reduce the number of jobs, particularly at the entry level, which I would think only make income inequality worse.
And then we have that loon Paul Krugman, a guy who just also happens to be the left’s favorite ‘economist’, who says that "extreme inequality is destructive." He further notes that "(because of) the growing concentration of income at the top, the effect of that concentration is to undermine all the values that define America." So he too advocates that the government adopt the rather nutty idea referred to as the "Robin Hood Principle." In other words this boob advocate the over-taxing of those who have actually earned the income in order to then handover the funds to those who have not earned it. This entire notion should make absolutely no sense to anyone possessing even the slightest concept of how economies work. Because in reality this too would one serve to worsen income inequality by reducing investment capital that is needed for growth in new job opportunities.
Now on the other side of the argument, and really the only way that makes any amount of sense, as well as providing an opportunity where we can arrive at a reasonable solution, is something that those the left has virtually no interest in pursuing. The very simple fact of the matter is that people are paid according to the value of their output, so it would only seem to make sense that the lessening of income inequality should be accomplished by providing opportunity for lower income earners to make greater contributions and therefore increase their earnings rather than simply giving them something for nothing. It is, in fact, this something for nothing program of the current administration that has caused the problem to worsen. There’s a lot of truth in that old adage, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
I mean, let’s face it, it doesn’t, or at least it shouldn’t, take a genius, just someone not dedicated to the failed system of socialism, to figure out what’s actually going on here. It only takes a little commonsense to be able to recognize that when an individual receives payments without ever having to contribute anything themselves, in an environment where there is no incentive for them to contribute, that there is a strong likelihood that such an individual will likely stay on welfare or continue to receive food stamps or claim unemployment benefits for as long as they possibly can. It’s just human nature. The increase in income from working a 30 hour per week job (the administration’s definition of a full-time employee) is negligible and therefore the person stays on the government payment program as long as possible, keeping their income relatively low.
So what is the solution? First off, if we’re going to be acting as adults, then we are going to need to realize that there will always be inequality of income, because there is inequality in the value of the contribution. To reduce this gap, we should concentrate on increasing the income of those at the bottom, not by taking away from those on top. This can only be done by growing the private sector of the economy. And as the economy grows, jobs are added. Workers who prepare themselves for these jobs can then find the opportunity to contribute. And one last thing here is that we also need to realize that the government DOES NOT create jobs. The only role that government has to play is to institute those policies that serve to encourage job creation and job growth. And examples of such policies would prove to be the complete opposite of nearly everything that Barry has done, supposedly all in the name of job creation.
Our policies should be geared to expanding the business sector, perhaps by reducing their income tax rates and reducing capital gains tax rates, so there is more investment capital as well as more incentives to invest and by reducing regulations that tend to hinder growth. Unfortunately we are doing just the opposite, so income inequality is likely to worsen. Because for Barry, it’s more important to punish the "rich" than to help the poor. That’s his mindset and, to be perfectly frank, it’s more than just a bit warped. Barry and his fellow leftists are fixated on this whole redistributing wealth thing, but a major component of that, as witnessed by his attitude on increasing the capital gains rate, is that the wealthy somehow need to be punished, even if it means hurting lower-income groups. The irony of all this is that these liberal policies often result in exacerbating income inequality.
Barry can pretend until the cows come home that he’s somehow nothing more than an innocent bystander, but it is a fact that income inequality has gotten, and is continuing to get, worse under his presidency. And it’s pretty obvious as well that a half-century and trillions of dollars in government transfer payments have not helped the poor. Whether or not liberals are able to come to grips with the reality that their programs have failed miserably, they continue to refuse to abandon them, because class warfare and government dependency programs are their only ticket to power. And let’s be clear, it’s not that conservatives don’t care about the poor. It’s that we do care about the poor, and everyone else. We believe that our free-market solutions generate economic growth, stimulate upward mobility and improve the economic lives of far more people, including the poor and middle class, than any other system.
Unfortunately, the bottom line here is that the left is always going to come on top in the "look at how much I care about you" contest. But you would think that sooner or later it will come to lose in the "actually caring" department because there will come point when these people will have to be presumed as having actually intended the damaging results that their policies have consistently brought about. Liberals can posture about how much they care and they can even try to change the channel from Obamacare, but it’s the devastating harm that that program has already caused to millions that may have finally punctured their pretense of caring. Add to that their shameless practice of attempting to exempt themselves from having to abide by the policies that they themselves create and it very quickly becomes apparent what it is that motivates these people. They’ve become quite good at making rules for the rest of us, while making sure those rules are never meant to apply to them.
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