THE ROYCROFT REPORT

No .. I’m not talking about the fiscal cliff,  nor am I talking about the almost $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities we face as a nation. Iran and a nuke?  Yeah .. that’s serious all right, but I’m told that we are messin’ with Iran right now in ways that you couldn’t even imagine – ways that could derail their nuclear plans for some time to come.  Is the real problem our sagging economy?  An oncoming second recession?  The growth of government dependency?  Sure … all of those are problems and all are difficult to deal with … but they pale to insignificance to the problem I’m bringing up here.

I think that it is truly time for us – those of us capable of thinking clearly and, perhaps, just a bit outside the box – to consider the possibility that somehow we have found ourselves with a president who is not all there.  Yes.  I mean that.  This president was never vetted by the media; that would have been racist.  He is a man with an admitted history of drug use.  Those portions of his past that he has not chosen to write about are shrouded in dark mystery.  And — now think about this — for perhaps the first time since they started issuing security clearances, we have a president who simply could not qualify for one.  If Obama were being hired to work in the White House, instead of occupying it, the FBI would simply recommend against a security clearance and the job would go away.  Isn’t it funny how a history with drug abuse and associations with known and convicted domestic terrorists and crime figures can screw up a good day?

The work, I think, that I’m looking for here is “psychosis.”  In this case I believe we have a man – a president – with an obsession bordering on psychosis for punishing wealthy people for what he sees as the crime of becoming wealthy.

I could go into detail here on the influences Obama’s father, his mother, and his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis had on Obama during his formative years.  I could then follow up with the influences of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and those Marxist professors and student groups he says he liked to hand around in college.  What we should concern ourselves with, however, is where these influences led Obama, and the answer is clear.  Obama has a deep, ingrained and very powerful hatred of the rich.  He believes that people with wealth acquired their riches by exploiting and oppressing others.  He makes exceptions, of course, for the fabulously rich athletes and entertainers, who surround him, fawn over him, worship him, and defend him.  Bread and circuses have always been a part of the leftist methodology.   The left will excuse any accumulation of wealth if it serves the end of distracting the public from matters that really might have an affect on their lives.

Back, though, to Obama’s obsession with punishing the wealth; and that’s his primary goal – punishment.  Raising revenues is only secondary in his mind.

I’ve gone through this before, but just start collecting some rhetorical gems from Dear Ruler over the years.   It bears repeating …

1. Obama’s statement to Joe the Plumber that we need to spread the wealth around.  He did not say we needed to raise taxes to fund government.  The purpose was to take from those who had earned the excess wealth and then give it to those who had not.
2. Obama’s statement to Charlie Gibson that even though increasing capital gains taxes would not lead to more revenue, it needed to be done “out of fairness.”  Again — increased revenue to fund government or pay down the debt was not the issue.
3. Obama’s admonition to high-achievers that at some point they needed to admit that they’ve made enough money.  Again – no drive for increased government revenues here.

Do you get the picture here?  This is an obsession for punishing the rich, not an attempt to develop sound economic policy.  To really track the path of Obama’s obsession with punishing just take a look at the changes in rhetoric as the arguments mounted against his beloved tax increase on the wealthy.

In the beginning Obama tells the people that the rich “need to pay their fair share.”  The “fair share” line comes right out of Democrat focus groups.  We’re taught from infancy that fairness is good … everyone and everything should be fair … and that includes what we pay in taxes.  And if Obama is saying that the rich “need to” pay their fair share, well then that must mean that they’re not paying their fair share now and something should be done about it.

Then Obama and the Democrats gradually change the rhetoric.  It goes from the rich “need” or “should” pay their fair share to the rich “aren’t” paying their fair share and their taxes must be increased.

The Republicans respond with an offer to revise the tax code by eliminating some deductions.  Now even though we have a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem, this offer made much better sense than just raising the tax rates.  Why?  Because Obama’s tax increase would hit small businesses.  Now Obama was right when he said that over 95% of small businesses would not be hit with the tax increase.  What he didn’t say is that the three percent or so of the businesses that WOULD be nailed are the businesses that employ 70% of all Americans and are right now are providing over 50% of all new private sector jobs.  The changes in tax deductions the Republicans were proposing would not affect these businesses and their tax burdens would not increase.

Obama knew that if the people actually started paying attention they would realize that the GOP proposal to modify tax deductions would produce the revenue increases Dear Ruler says he wants while protecting small businesses.  This meant he had to change his rhetoric again.  So now we have Obama largely abandoning his “raise taxes on the rich” rhetoric to “raise tax RATES on the rich.”  Referencing tax RATES suppresses GOP arguments for other ways to raise revenues.

All of this shows that Obama’s concern is not so much with increasing tax revenues as it is with punishing high-achievers whom Obama feels obtained their wealth through dishonesty, exploitation and oppression.  If you follow the news as closely as I do you will see that many low-information Americans out there will echo this sentiment.  Obama is probably aware that increases in tax rates seldom result in the revenues wished for.  He cares not.  It’s about retribution and punishment, not dealing with our deficit and spending problem.