In a 2001 interview Barack Obama said he wanted to radically reinterpret the Constitution to redistribute America’s wealth.
It looks like his plan is working.
Private sector pay shrank to its smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, government handouts soared.
USA Today reported:
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.
At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.
The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. “This is really important,” Grimes says.
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Published May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 87 Comments
Militant Conservative commented:
He’s a socialist, I’m not suprised, perhaps the sleeping Americans will read this and digest the truth.
olm commented:
I’ve been hoping they would digest the truth for a while now.
The truth this week seems particularly glaring.
Robert commented:
Either this is what they want
or they are completely incompetent.
Either way we are in big trouble.
Oh yeah and, JOBS?
Greg commented:
A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: “You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
kansas commented:
Wonder if there will be some pictures of O on the front porch hammering down a couple of 40s this memorial day so he can get some cred with the homeys?
Finncrisp commented:
No kidding – ya mean we can’t indefinitely spend money we don’t have? Brilliant! Reminds me of the time I went through the ATM drive through with my young children,. When the money popped out, they thought someone just “gave it to me”. They know better now.
I guess Barry, Nancy, and Harry do not.
Is it NOvember yet?
Kevin P commented:
“Not Yours to Give.”
From the great Davy Crockett from – http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/03/18/davy-crocketts-lesson-for-congress/
…Col. David Crockett served three terms in Congress from Tennessee, where he is best known for delivering a speech known as “Not Yours to Give.” In response to a proposal for an appropriation to benefit the widow of a naval officer, Rep. Crockett said:
I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. …
We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.
He went on to quote a constituent who had complained when he previously voted for a similar measure:
The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.
Andreas K. commented:
2010 budget of Germany: 320 billion Euros.
Cost of the German welfare state in 2010: 150 billion Euros.
Down with the marxists.
jonyjoe101 commented:
I know people on unemployment who make more money than people who work 40 hours a week. Life is good if you are on the public dole.
mark commented:
Let’s start with you Obama. You’re a multi-millionaire now. Why don’t you redistribute your own wealth to your family? You have an aunt living on skid row, a brother living in squalor in Kenya, and what about all those “friends” you organized on the South Side of Chicago. They weren’t just pawns were they? How about giving them a piece of your pie?
averagemelon commented:
Redistribute is a very pretty word for theft.
JKB commented:
This is terrible news for those wanting to create a socialist utopia in the United States. A sad fact for all those anti-capitalist out there is that you have to have capitalism before you can have socialism. Otherwise there is nothing distribute. My personal belief is that a socialism and also the socialist/welfare state can only survive with a strong capitalist state to create wealth and prosperity that can be leached off of. Even then, we now see that it eventually exceeds the capability of capitalism and worse for the EU, their fellow travelers are having good success undermining the engine of their system, the US.
Harrison commented:
Excellent find thank you!