Nuclearian Loc: I live in a Fascist, Liberal State

In a December 4 speech, President Obama declared income "inequality" to be "the defining challenge of our time."

It is time for me to come clean; to own up to a dark secret I have been hiding most of my life. It is embarrassing to admit it, but I suffer from income inequality.

Yes, there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people who make more money than I do and it has affected my life in ways too numerous to recount.

Starting with my first summer job as a bellhop and kitchen worker at a hotel in Maine when I was 14, I kept records of the amount of money I earned. The ledger records that on a really good day I made as much as $8 in tips. The hotel owner paid me a salary of $20 a week, but included a small room in the basement and all the food I could eat. He made more money than I did.

In the early '60s, as a copyboy at NBC News in Washington, my take-home pay was less than $100 a week. Everyone else, including, I suspect, the janitor, made more than I did.

When I finally got on the air as a broadcast journalist, my NBC check stubs were far less than the withholding on David Brinkley's paycheck. I still bear the scars from this income "inequality."

When I was 37 I made $25,000 a year and took public transportation to and from work. Many others, including most of the people I interviewed, made far more money than I did. Some of them had cars and drivers to squire them around Washington.

Was it "fair" that these people were richer than I was? Absolutely, as long as I had the opportunity through education, risk-taking, experience and hard work to eventually make more.

President Obama and some leaders in the Democratic Party appear to want us to accept a false premise: that if I earn more money than you, I "owe" you some of my money to make things "fair." This might be true if the amount of money available were fixed, but it is not.

The communist philosophy is similar to this way of thinking: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," is the slogan popularized by Karl Marx. In other words, mutually-shared poverty with just enough to barely sustain everyone, not an avenue out of poverty with hope as the mode of transportation, hard work as the fuel and success as the destination.

Income "inequality" is a part of the greed-envy-entitlement philosophy promoted by liberals who want to addict more people to government and entice them to vote for the party that is effectively buying their loyalty. And now they want to extend the 99-week limit for unemployment benefits, which has the potential to enable those people who are unwilling to look for a job.

Today, we have a tendency to punish the successful and subsidize the unsuccessful. It used to be the reverse, which motivated more people to become, if not a success, then at least self-sustaining.

There was a time when Americans would have been ashamed to take, much less ask for, anything from their fellow citizens. If you were able-bodied, asking for help from the government was regarded by a previous generation as moral weakness.

Today, the attitude promoted by the income "inequality" crowd is one of victimization. Poor people are told they are victims because successful people have stolen from them what is rightfully theirs.

Envy, greed and entitlement are not the things that built America, or sustained her through numerous wars and a Great Depression.

The concern should not be how much others make, but how much you can make if you apply yourself and adopt the values embraced by successful people.

Those who make what I once earned and think they can never earn more are being told a lie. Realizing this is the first step to improving one's income and one's life.

By Cal Thomas

Loki Loc: Georgia

True. By succumbing to this philosophy, you abdicate responsibility for your own actions. You did not get yourself into this mess, so you are not responsible for getting yourself out. You must have government help to do so.

catpaw Loc: Bakersfield, California

Rush Limbaugh couldn't have said it better. Cal Thomas is right and 40 milliion Americans living at or below poverty are wrong.

Winter Solstice Loc: Salt Lake City

40 million Americans living below the poverty level is a real shame. In today's environment, We the People are responsible for that poverty and MUST give to the poor so as to bring them up out of poverty.
According to Carl Marks, Obama, Liberals, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". This is Communism, nothing less. Of course, the poor who cannot get food and shelter deserve some of our concern. However many of the poor are there of their own choosing by settling for the low paying jobs and working them for years and years instead of trying to advance themselves. These do not deserve our concern.
Should we continue with the Marxist doctrine, we will ALL be below the poverty level. Then what?

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

People have been displaced. They have no assets. they are unwanted. There are those would not grant them a place in the system.

So I say to all of you that feel that way. Just what do you propose to do with all of that dead wood?

I say I will lend support to the less well off. But my means are limited in being able to help much.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Why, then, the Liberals will announce yet another five year plan to redistribute income, just as soon as they find someone who has any.

catpaw Loc: Bakersfield, California

Interesting. I don't recall Obama or liberals quoting Carl (or Groucho) Marx.
And it's simply because tens of millions of people suddenly decided at the same time to choose poverty over jobs with an equitable wage. And when they try to advance themselves (such as striking fast food joints), they are suddenly greedy, lazy, communists who don't want to work or better themselves.
How's this for communist brainwashing and Marxist doctrine:
The less gap of wage disparity, the more money circulating the economy. That means a broader tax base, which means more government revenue, which means less of a deficit and more debt paid down and more investment in infrastructure, education, health care--you know, the usual socialistic, communist, marxist, give-away programs.
Equitable wages also means more spending, more consumer demand, and consumer demand means more production and--yeah, you guessed it--more jobs.
But since this is obviously an communist plot from an anti-christ who hates America and wants to destroy all we hold holy, let's not do it.

bahmer

Amen, this sounds like a radio broadcast from Rush or Sean or even Mark. I think that you can all fill in the last names here. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

vernon

catpaw will say thats the fair way.

catpaw Loc: Bakersfield, California

Well, I guess you could call it fair. I was thinking more along the lines of common sense.

joe1941

How can anyone know what income actually is when even the IRS will not define it?

Constitutional libertarian Loc: St Croix National Scenic River Way

[quote=catpaw]Interesting. I don't recall Obama or liberals quoting Carl (or Groucho) Marx.
And it's simply because tens of millions of people suddenly decided at the same time to choose poverty over jobs with an equitable wage. And when they try to advance themselves (such as striking fast food joints), they are suddenly greedy, lazy, communists who don't want to work or better themselves.
How's this for

Why don't you just have the gov print more Monopoly money and subsidize mc d or bk employees.

Which of course makes it worth less so their is no net gain.

vernon

there is nothing fair about punishing the producers ,what needs to be done is workfair and get them off their behind.you might be suprised how many will go out and get a job

catpaw Loc: Bakersfield, California

So call "producers" and "job creators" don't produce products or create jobs. Consumer demand and disposable income produces products and creates jobs.

catpaw Loc: Bakersfield, California

[quote=Constitutional libertarian]

Who said anything about printing more money? An equitable wage does not require printing more money.