Soak the Rich!

The centerpiece of Barack Obama's "plan" as we approach the fiscal cliff negotiations is his insistence that "the rich" pay their "fair share." Of course this plan won't solve a thing, but it warms the hearts of those on the Left and apparently, it's the only tactic that Obama either understands or can enunciate with any degree of specificity.

If you want to better understand the impact of Obama's approach to our fiscal problems, it's worth visiting a website entitled "Soak the Rich!" It begins with a quote and a comment:

“We have looted the future to bribe the present. You can do that for a little while, but eventually it catches up to you.” Mark Steyn, appearance on CSPAN-2 BookTV, 02/05/2012

Politicians, the editorial page of The New York Times, the talent at CNN, and the average Fine Arts professor agree: the answer to America’s debt crisis is to make The Rich pay their “fair share.” With this consensus from such a broad swath of America’s leading minds, who are we to argue?

You then get to see the impact of doubling income taxes on the nation’s largest employers and taking all of their CEOs’ pay on industries in 30 different economic sectors.

The sad reality (yeah, I know, Obama and his supporters are much more into symbolism than reality) is that if corporate taxes in every one of the sectors were doubled and CEO pay was confiscated, we'd only reduce the yearly deficit of $1.3 trillion by 24.9 percent. We'd only reduce our overall debt by just over 2 percent.

We need real solutions to deficits and debt, and Barack Obama is either unwilling or unable to propose them. That's no surprise for those of us who opposed his re-election, but it's cold comfort indeed.

We need real compromise and real solutions, not rhetoric and posturing by the President. Unfortunately, real solutions will cause pain—and not just for "the rich." But with its verdict on Barack Obama, a majority of Americans seem perfectly willing to "loot the future to bribe the present." Sad.