sowell - barack obama fallacy of redistribution

Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design.


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But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended
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You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated

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Barack Obama can endlessly proclaim his slogan of "Forward," but what he is proposing is going backwards to policies that have failed repeatedly in countries around the world. Yet, to many people who cannot be bothered to stop and think, redistribution sounds good


http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/091912-626275-obama-redistribution-fallacy-has-grave-consequences.htm?p=full

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius guilty of breaking the law - Obama does nothing

Abuse Of Power: The White House has dismissed HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' politicking on the taxpayer dime as "an inadvertent error" and is letting her get away with it. It shows a pick-and-choose attitude to law.


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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was found by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to be in violation of the Hatch Act for political campaigning on the taxpayer dime last Feb. 25 at a taxpayer-funded event. The penalty for such an act is normally removal from office.


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Called to answer for its stance by ABC News' Jake Tapper after a week of media silence, White House spokesman Jay Carney explained that the event had since been reclassified as a non-taxpayer event, and the public money used was reimbursed.


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But the law remains broken no matter what the administration does to reclassify what she did. The next step is impeachment. Congress should do it.



http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/091912-626344-obama-cabinet-secretary-violates-the-law-with-no-penalty.htm

Your Taxes At Work - Top 10 Percent Paid 71 percent of Fed Income Taxes

Top 10 Percent of Earners Paid 71 Percent of Federal Income Taxes

Top earners are the target for new tax increases, but the federal income tax system is already highly progressive. The top 10 percent of income earners paid 71 percent of all federal income taxes in 2009 though they earned 43 percent of all income. The bottom 50 percent paid 2 percent of income taxes but earned 13 percent of total income. About half of tax filers paid no federal income tax at all.

PERCENTAGE OF FEDERAL INCOME TAXES AND INCOME EARNED (2009)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/your-taxes-work-all-you-need-know-about-who-pays-what-taxes-us

The Moral Case for Capitalism

“Free enterprise doesn’t matter just because it’s made America the richest country in history. It matters because it has created an unparalleled system of human flourishing that is a magnet for people all over the world. It matters because it treats people fairly, based on their achievement and not their relationship to the government. It matters because it has lifted people out of desperate poverty by the billions.”


Arthur Brooks, American Enterprise Institute

http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/free-enterprise/why-free-enterprise-is-about-morals-not-materialism/