Friday, September 23, 2011

The President in a Playpen

"A Frivolously Destructive Presidency." That's not only the title of George Neumayr's latest American Spectator article; it is the most precise phrase I've seen yet to describe the tenure of Barack Obama.

It is a very perceptive, persuasive piece which I recommend you pass on to others. Here's a couple of teasers:

Obama's presidency lurches from fad to fad -- from gays in the military to "green jobs" to the "Buffett rule." Hyped as a profound presidency, it has turned out to be an embarrassingly frivolous one. Sober historians of the future, not cowed by political correctness, will no doubt look back and say that Obama fiddled while America burned, indulging his sophomoric socialism, environmentalism, and social engineering at a time of terrorism and economic crisis...

Obama's half-baked Marxist musings with Joe the Plumber remain his deepest thoughts on the purpose of taxation. He still feels entitled to seize wealth and "spread" it around. When he says that the rich aren't paying their "fair share," all he is saying is that their money belongs to the government automatically for redistribution. But that's just theft masquerading as taxation. The true principle of taxation is not the redistribution of wealth but the financing of legitimate government activity, and under that principle the rich are paying more than their fair share, as they carry a disproportionate amount of those costs. Republicans should resist the Buffett rule not just because it will inhibit job creation and consumption but because it is a bald act of theft...