The Punishment of Success
February 22, 2009 12 Comments
The contradictions between what President Barack Obama says and what he does are immense. In an article this morning published by the Washington Post he has vowed to cut the United States budget deficit within four years. This will most assuredly be a difficult task as the current budget has become even more bloated thanks to Porkfest 2009, the recent $700 BILLION stimulus package pushed through Congress by the Obama administration. Of course the White House has stated a couple of methods for achieving their stated goals.
One such method that the Obama administration plans to utilize in order to reduce the deficit is a reduction in spending on the Iraq War. I understand that the war will end eventually, but I think that it would be a disaster to end it prematurely. Until stability has been achieved we cannot completely withdraw troops from the nation. I truly hope that Obama can see that an earlier withdrawal from that nation can and will lead to a destabilization of the region and leave the region open to exploitation by terrorist organizations and rogue nations. A premature withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq could result in the need for a reinvasion of the nation to capture or eliminate terrorist threats in the future.
Another method that Obama intends to use to help shrink the budget deficit is to raise taxes on what he calls wealthy families. These are families earning at least $250,000 a year. He doesn’t seem to take into account that families that earn in the neighborhood of $250,000 tend to be self-employed small business owners. Because of this they do not have the advantage of employer provided benefits. As a result much of what the rest of us take for granted such as health insurance and holiday pay these “wealthy” families do not receive. For these families any unexpected operating expense for their business usually comes from the family budget. These families have poured their hearts and souls into building a successful small business. Now President Obama comes along and wants to punish these highly motivated and hard working families with higher taxes. Tell me where is the justice in that? Why should the hardworking business owners subsidize someone else’s poor judgment? Why should business owners subsidize a single mother because she doesn’t have the common sense to use protection?
President Obama has plans for the US, but they will not advance our nation. Instead Obama’s plans for our nation will put our nation at risk. They will put the middle class at risk. Obama’s plan will do more to curb ambition and aspirations for a better life. In short President Obama rather than using good sense and rewarding the most hardworking and industrious among us will punish them.
Pingback: Barack Obama » The Punishment of Success
Obama has been speaking words of fear and Americans are afraid. We know more taxes are coming our way, people are buying guns and ammo and making plans to plant gardens. Great post and I would say there is no “justice” now.
Obama is arrogant. I thought it was all an act on the campaign trail…..you know, showing “confidence.” But it seems to be an actual personality trait. An arrogant President will be the downfall of this nation.
I pity those poor people making $250,000 who have to buy their own health insurance. It probably costs $10,000 a year, leaving them with only $240,000. Life is tough.
Or wait! Maybe they get to deduct the whole cost on line 29 of their Form 1040. I’ll bet you didn’t know about that trick, did you? So their $250,000 income may be AFTER the health insurance bills are paid. Life is SO tough.
Doesn’t really matter how much they make, Jerry. Why should they pay for someone else with the money that they earned? So much for the “American Dream.” Until we quit penalizing productivity, there will not be opportunities out there for the poor or the middle class to succeed. Hand-outs only get us so far; it does not solve the problem.
Jerry you are completely missing the point here. Obama’s plan is to punish those with the drive and the determination to succeed.
As I stated in the post I fail to see why those that struggled through adversity to succeed should subsidize the life of those that don’t even try. Come where is the motivation here if we reward laziness and stupidity and punish hard work and determination?
This is all part of that change he talked about ! isnt it great tax to death the bulk of the people who create alot of the jobs out there makes sense to me. What are we gonna have left when your done taxing the rich Mr Obama? Your first month in office sure is a joke on the people that got you elected. Im not laughing one bit . I didnt elect you and wont support a amateur hour joke of a presidency you have shown us so far. Got plans to cut deficit by 2/3s i havent figured out how your gonna do that when your busy spending spending spending. Why should i pay for someones mortgage when my house is paid for? He wasnt kidding by spreading around the wealth there Joe the Plumber .
Not all highly paid people “struggled through adversity to succeed.” Some of them just inherited property or stock portfolios or got hired by prosperous relatives or became (gag) bankers who prey on people.
It’s not how hard they worked that is at issue. It’s whether they are really so selfish as to deny that they went to school on the public dime and drive on state-supported roads and depend on the sheriff and the Navy to protect their wealth. The whole purpose of the county courthouse is to protect wealth. The wealthy should pay more in taxes because the whole system is for their benefit and they have the money in hand.
Jerry, we could debate all day on who is deserving and who is not. Who should be penalized and who should not. The fact of the matter comes down to this: it is not up to the government to pick the winners and losers. Because, guess what, one day it may be your turn to be the loser and it may not just be your money. It could be your freedom or your life. If you want to leave it up to a bunch of fallible elected officials to decide who is in and who is out, then you better be an advocate for the 2nd Amendment because the original purpose of that is for the people to protect themselves from their own government.
I get the feeling that Jerry and others want all of us to roll over and not just play dead but be dead so that Obama and liberals can have their way with America. There are other people with ideas and opinions that need to be heard. After all this still is America and we have the right to say what we think.
The wealthy do pay taxes and if we tax them to death then where will we be?????
Jerry,
So what you are saying is that if I work my way up the ladder to succeed, I should be punished for that. Are you implying that because I succeed the government can take more of my hard earned money to spread it around to those that it feels are in need? I am sorry Jerry but your assumptions are just plain wrong, and in this case the government is just plain wrong. By increasing the taxes on those that have succeeded will do nothing but harm the economy. If the government is going to take more money from people for being successful, why even bother being successful? Why even try to be self sustaining when the government is going to help those who won’t help themselves.
A key point that you keep forgetting is that education in this country is not free. We pay for it everyday when we pay taxes. So the successful among us have not gotten a public education have not done so on the governments dime, we have done so on the blood, sweat, and tears of our parents.
The whole situation that our country is in right now can be traced back to entitlement programs that do nothing to help people succeed but instead make them more and more reliant on those entitlement programs. Welcome to feudalism for the 21st Century only instead of having an absolute ruler we have a populace ruled by an overly intrusive government.
Goverment taking more of my money sure makes me want to get off of my butt and work hard (ha) but that’s where the party lines are drawn. Democrats are about giving hand-outs so people are not inspired to work hard and Republicans are about providing opportunity so everybody has a chance to succeed if they work hard.