Hillary and Barack: Two Peas in a Class-Warfare Pod

Every so often, I come across some statement by President Obama that is either jaw-droppingly misguided or unintentionally revealing, and I place it in my is-this-the-worst-thing-he-ever-said file.

His “spread the wealth” comment to Joe the Plumber is the most famous example, but that was before I started this blog. Previous entries on my list include.

• In my video on class warfare, I noted that Obama said in 2008 that – for reasons of “fairness” – he wanted to raise the capital gains tax even if the government lost revenue.
• A couple of years ago, he arrogantly remarked that “at some point you have made enough money.”
• In 2011, the President was complaining about bank fees and assertedthat, “you don’t have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit…”
  

  “Barack, I read this great book that says ‘from each according to his ability…'”

• Earlier this year, Obama made his infamous “you didn’t build that” statement, which generated some very amusing political cartoons.

But our Secretary of State also likes saying odd things.

• Mrs. Clinton said we can’t end the War on Drugs because “there is just too much money in it,” apparently oblivious to the fact that high profits for the cartels only exist because of criminalization.
• In 2010, while speaking in Latin America, she asserted that, “the wealthy across the Americas to pay their ‘fair share’ of taxes in order to eliminate poverty and promote economic opportunity for all.”
• While testifying before Congress, she repeated her argument that more revenue improves economic development, claiming that, “well-off Pakistani’s do not pay their fair share for the services that are needed.”
• And showing that her understanding of geography is just as weak as her understanding of public finance economics, Hillary claimed, “Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what — they’re growing like crazy.”

Now we have another Hillary Clinton quote, as reported by the Guardian.

There are rich people everywhere, and yet they do not contribute to their growth of their own countries.

Wow, that’s remarkable. She’s actually claiming that rich people somehow get a lot of money without boosting growth, even though they obviously provided some value and benefit in order get people to voluntarily pay money for whatever it is that made the person wealthy.

But that’s not the most offensive part of her statement. What really stuns me is the assertion that growth will be enhanced if these successful people give a greater share of their money to a corrupt and venal political class.

For all intents and purposes, she is asserting that government in these nations is too small, even though the evidence from western nations shows that small governments were very conducive to growth. Moreover, we’re supposed to believe that high tax rates won’t discourage productive economic behavior.

Which leads me to ask a simple question: Can anybody show me a poor nation that became a rich nation while imposing high tax rates and having a bloated public sector?

P.S. Even though Mrs. Clinton wasn’t making any distinction, allow me to stipulate that there are some rich people who got money dishonestly. I addressed this issue in a post last year and I suspect that some politicians think rich people are sleazy crooks because the rich people they hang out with are sleazy crooks.

P.P.S. Click here to get the answer to the question about nations that became rich with high tax rates and big government.

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How Corrupt Is Washington?

Regular readers know that Washington is a very sleazy city. Just as rats and cockroaches are attracted to a dumpster, con artists and fraudsters are attracted to big government.

A bloated budget means many opportunities to get unearned wealth by being politically well connected. A loophole-ridden, 72,000-page tax code creates a sandbox for lobbyists. And special interest groups view Washington’s massive regulatory apparatus the way pigs view a mudbath.

You won’t be surprised to learn that politicians figure out how to get a cut of the action. Here are a few of the sordid details from a report in the Washington Post.

73 members of Congress…have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation in recent years that could benefit businesses or industries in which either they or their family members are involved or invested, according to a Washington Post analysis. The findings emerge from an examination by The Post of financial disclosure forms and public records for all 535 members of the House and Senate. The practice is both legal and permitted under the ethics rules that Congress has written for itself, which allow lawmakers to take actions that benefit themselves or their families except when they are the lone beneficiaries.

To be fair, the actions identified by the Washington Post are not necessarily immoral. A politician who supports a lower capital gains tax rate, for instance, presumably will benefit directly because of less double taxation on his investments and indirectly because of more prosperity.

I don’t view that as wrong. Indeed, the lawmakers use this kind of excuse to justify their behavior.

The legislators, in interviews and through spokesmen, said they saw no conflicts between their legislative actions and holdings. They added that they have a duty to advocate for their constituents, even when those interests align with their own.

But just because they use that excuse, that doesn’t mean their behavior is appropriate. There’s a simple way to determine what’s wrong, immoral, and corrupt.

If politicians take steps that enable everyone – including themselves – to keep more of their own money (or to earn additional money), that’s fine.

If they do something that enables anybody – including themselves – to take money or value from other people, that’s wrong.

Here’s my video explaining the connection between big government and corruption.

The moral of the story shouldn’t be that difficult to understand. Don’t take things that don’t belong to you, which is one of the rules of libertarianism that we hopefully learn in kindergarten (to see the rest of the rules, see the David Boaz quote in this post about Obama’s socialism-for-kids proposal).

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