The War on Success

Brad O'Leary has a column at Investor's Business Daily that should be a warning to all of us of what's to come:

One of the greatest achievements in the life of an astronomer is to discover a new planet or solar system. In the political world, the equivalent is uncovering a new voting bloc.

When writing my latest book, "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values," I discovered a relatively unknown constituency: the 30% of American voters who do not pay federal income taxes.

These Americans are exempt from paying income taxes either because their income level is below the threshold that would require them to pay, or their total deductions leave them with no income-tax liability.

So I set out to determine exactly who these people are and what makes them tick. In conjunction with Zogby America, I conducted a series of carefully orchestrated polls. For more results than I can write about here, you'll have to buy my book or go to www.BarackObamaTest.com.

First, I found that 60% of likely voters among nontaxpaying Americans favor Obama for president, whereas only 31% favor John McCain. In addition, a majority of the 30% of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes agree with Obama's $65 billion plan to institute taxpayer-funded, universal health coverage.

On the other side, a majority of the 70% of Americans who pay federal income taxes (i.e., the folks who would have to foot the bill for this boondoggle) are opposed to Obama's health care plan.

A majority of nontaxpayers (57%) also favor raising the individual income-tax rate for those in the highest bracket to 54% from 35%. A majority of nontaxpayers (59%) also favor raising Social Security taxes by 4% for any individual or business that makes at least $250,000.

Nontaxpayers support Obama's plans for increased tax deductions for lower-income Americans along with higher overall tax rates levied against middle- and upper-income households as well.

They also want to expand their ranks from 30% of all Americans to 40%. Obama's tax plan, with its smorgasbord of deductions and credits aimed at lower-income households, would do exactly that.

Today, 70% of Americans shoulder the majority of the federal budgetary burden for all Americans. These Americans, by and large, do most of the risk-taking and innovating that produces the wealth, jobs and products that drive the American economy — not to mention pay the taxes that fund an ever expanding array of federal welfare programs and handouts.

Obama claims 95% of Americans would get a tax cut under his tax plan. Yet only 70% of Americans actually pay federal income taxes. How does this compute? Is he going to give more money to nontaxpayers?

The math simply does not add up. You can't give a tax cut to 95% of Americans if only 70% of them pay federal income taxes in the first place. Then again, math may not be Obama's strong suit, and judging by his earlier foray into "improving" education, it isn't a priority.

When Obama worked with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the foundation doled out $160 million to effect education "reform" in the Chicago school system. Yet students at Annenberg schools showed no marked improvement over non-Annenberg students.

This is because Obama, Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge focused their resources on projects designed to promote an awareness of social injustice among students, as well as a general disrespect for authority — as opposed to projects that focused on core subjects like math and science.

Projects like the Chicago Algebra Project and the District 5 Math and Science Initiative were rejected by the Annenberg Challenge. Meanwhile, the Challenge shelled out $200,000 to the South Shore African Village Collaborative to help them celebrate "Juneteenth."

Obama's lack of devotion to math aside, he fails to understand that successful, hardworking, taxpaying Americans have created the world's No. 1 economy — by far. Even when recession threatened earlier this year, U.S. gross domestic product still weighed in at an eye-popping $13.8 trillion.

However, if Barack Obama and his legions of nontaxpaying supporters are allowed to set America's economic policies and priorities, a wrench will be thrown into the gears of our remarkable economic machine. America will face a new war. Call it Obama's "war on success." In this war, there will be no winners — only losers — taxpayers and nontaxpayers alike.

Why do we have so many people who don't pay income taxes? Because someone somewhere decided it was "fair". Nonsense. Fair is each person paying the same percentage of income. That way everybody has a stake in what the government is doing with their money, and everyone has a stake in helping support the nation's defense.

Our tax system is a sham and instead of rewarding success and good business, we punish it with confiscatory taxes.