Is This Where America Is Headed?
Mark Levin talked about a Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Henninger during his show this evening. Henninger urges his readers to “(m)emorize Figure 9 (page 11 of President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget), and you will never be confused” about where President Obama’s wants to take the country.
The chart’s attribution is to “Piketty & Saez.” Henninger explains why it is “the Rosetta Stone to the presidential mind of Barack Obama." He writes:
“Either you know instantly what "Piketty and Saez" means, or you don't. If you do, you spent the past two years working to get Barack Obama into the White House. If you don't, their posse has a six-week head start on you.
“Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."
“Messrs. Piketty and Saez have produced the most politically potent squiggle along an axis since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin in the mid-1970s. Laffer's was an economic argument for lowering tax rates for everyone. Piketty-Saez is a moral argument for raising taxes on the rich.
“As described in Mr. Obama's budget, these two economists have shown that by the end of 2004, the top 1% of taxpayers "took home" more than 22% of total national income. This trend, Fig. 9 notes, began during the Reagan presidency, skyrocketed through the Clinton years, dipped after George Bush beat Al Gore, then marched upward. Widening its own definition of money-grubbers, the budget says the top 10% of households "held" 70% of total wealth.
“Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute criticized the Piketty-Saez study on these pages in October 2007. Whatever its merits, their "Top 1%" chart has become a totemic obsession in progressive policy circles.”
According to Wikipedia, the Rosetta Stone “contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyph writing.” Additionally, if the word “dispossess” is not a part of your daily vocabulary, you may want to add it; according to Dictionary.com, the first meaning is: “to put (a person) out of possession, esp. of real property; oust.” We’ve growled several times about “income inequality” (most recently here and here), and urge reading Mr. Henninger's entire column. The concluding paragraph, however, reads:
”The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood. This presidency is going to be an act of retribution. In the words of the third book from Mr. Obama, "it is our duty to change it."