From Tinker to Evers to Chance

From the InstaPundit to The Tatler to Josh Barro of Bloomberg, there is a trail to another discussion of the Roanoke speech.

Maybe this was a problem with the speech, but the key problem was much simpler:  The president was needlessly insulting.  He wasn’t just calling on successful people to pay more in tax but was being dismissive of their accomplishments.
I agree with David Frum that the most toxic part of the speech is Barack Obama talking about the sources of success:

I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

Really?  The president is always struck by people who take credit for their own successes? Obviously, every successful outcome in life -- and every failed one -- arises from a combination of internal and external factors.  But the president’s tone when he said this, amused by the very idea of people taking credit for their achievements, was off-putting.

A different view of the speech, but here is another part of the OpEd.

The president’s speech calls to mind a second-season West Wing episode, in which speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) explains to the staff of some liberal house members why he won’t insert a line in President Bartlet’s upcoming speech.  They want the president to attack Republican tax cut proposals as financing “private jets and swimming pools” for the wealthy.  As Seaborn argues:

Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said, "It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch and changed my name.  I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year, which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in income tax.  I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other people.  And I'm happy to 'cause that's the only way it's gonna work, and it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to schools and drive on roads, but I don't get twenty-seven votes on Election Day.  The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-seven times faster and the water doesn't come out of my faucet twenty-seven times hotter.  The top one percent of wage earners in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country.  Let's not call them names while they're doing it, is all I'm saying.

When Barack Obama has made an argument for progressive taxation that even Aaron Sorkin finds distasteful, he has erred.

Frankly, I am not someone who watched West Wing, but the sentiment makes sense.

And, let us be clear.  Those who earn more should pay more in taxes.  On the other hand, the sentiment above rings true.  The person earning $35,000 per annum in the United Dates is still benefitting quite a bit.  Otherwise, why do we have all those illegal immigrants from Latin America (and, as someone correctly said to me today, and the Irish)?  As Scripture tells us (Luke 12:48b):

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.

But, still, we need Concensus as to what is a "fair share".

Regards  —  Cliff