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The fracas over Obama’s tax plan broke out Sunday outside Toledo when Joe Wurzelbacher approached the candidate.
Wurzelbacher said he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.
“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the blue-collar worker asked.
After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: “I’ve worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I’m buying this company and I’m going to continue working that way. I’m getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream.”
“It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama told him. “I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success, too.
Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.
“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Huey Long, Louisiana’s colourful governor and senator in the 1920′s and 1930′s, used to talk about “sharing the wealth.” Even Franklin Roosevelt found his redistributionism an embarrassment and even dangerous. Evidently my comparison of Barack Obama with Juan Peron is closer to reality than I thought. And Huey Long is a lot closer to home than Juan Peron.
They used to call Huey Long–an old style, Southern populist–the “Kingfish.” In a country where people know more about old TV shows than their own history, that needs to be left there. But the point is this: socialists come in all colours.
1 comment
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The Republic'er says:
22 October 2008 at 0021 (UTC -5 )
Great points!!! I agree with the Juan Peron argument as well. Huey Long & Barack Obama must be related. ~ Keep Going.
Positive Infinity » Blog Archive » The Last Debate says:
16 October 2008 at 0819 (UTC -5 )
[...] wish that Art would remember Huey Long, but…I am obsessed with Louisiana politics. It’s in the [...]
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7 September 2009 at 1151 (UTC -5 )
[...] Barack Obama and Juan Peron: Same Playbook, Same Results?7 September 2009, me @ 11:51I’ve make this connection before, too, but here’s something of [...]
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17 October 2009 at 0754 (UTC -5 )
[...] You read that here a long time ago, last October to be exact, during the campaign: [...]
Positive Infinity » Blog Archive » It Is Gordon Brown’s “Joe the Plumber Moment,” Only Worse says:
29 April 2010 at 1055 (UTC -5 )
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