Joe the Everyday American

Joe the plumber has become celebrity #1 in America. The guy who is working hard and trying to get ahead. The guy who wants his own part of the American dream. This is your Everyday American.

Joe, the new celebrity plumber, got a chance to ask Barack Obama the question that all of us would like to ask Obama: How are your tax plans going to hurt me?

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "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."

Joe the Everyday American got the answer we are looking for from Obama. It's good for everyone when "you spread the wealth around". Let's translate that. Obama's policies are going to take money out of my pocket and give it to someone else. No matter how much money you make - whether a lot or a little - it is not the government's responsibility to take it away and give it to someone else who did not earn it.

This off the cuff comment is right up there with Joe Biden's comment that paying taxes are patriotic. I'm not sure what dictionary Biden found his definition of "patriotism" in but it's not the same one that I keep on my bookshelf.

Working hard, being successful and hiring others to help grow your business are American values. Successful businesspeople hire others to work for them. Poor people do not start businesses and pay taxes. "Spreading the wealth" for the good of many is not an American value. In fact it ties nicely into another philosophy.

In a higher phase of communist society ... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Thank you Karl Marx.

We finally have an insight into Obama and the Democratic Party's thought processes. It seems that it's more in line with Karl Marx than with mainstream American philosophy.