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Cant Do Spirit
on June 17, 2008 6:42:00 | 3376 times read
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CAN'T DO SPIRIT
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death." -
Auntie Mame
In today's political climate, a liberal Auntie Mame might say that life
is a banquet, which the government must pay for, and that those who
can't afford a place at the table should behave like it was an
all-you-can eat buffet.
This is the view of Barack Obama. In an interview with The Wall Street
Journal, Obama expounded on the economic policies he would pursue as
president. Among other things, he is concerned about the
"winner-take-all" economy where, he says, "the gains from economic
growth skew heavily toward the wealthy." Actually, the gains from
economic growth can skew toward anyone willing to work hard and make
personal and family decisions that improve their chances for success.
This is boilerplate wealth redistribution, an economic philosophy at the
center of the former Soviet Union. Obama and Democrats wish to embrace
it now in order to make more people dependent on government, rather than
encourage people to rely on themselves and the opportunity America
offers to most citizens, even illegal aliens. Guaranteed equal outcome
is socialism.
America was built on and sustained by a "can do" spirit. Today, too many
are taught a "can't do" spirit. They are told that because of factors
over which they have no control - race, class, poverty - it is
impossible for them to do anything for themselves and so they must
increasingly rely on government. Government doesn't cure poverty. It
merely sets up barriers that ensure that too many poor people will
remain locked in poverty. They are encouraged to vote for Democrats, if
they want to keep receiving "benefits."
In his classic work "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "There
is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction
that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take
himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide
universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him
but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to
him to till."
How many read Emerson today in schools that graduate multitudes who
can't read, write, or do basic math? Who teaches self-reliance? It's all
about relying on government as our keeper.
America once was a country of overcomers. Today, we are not about
overcoming. The successful are not studied to see how they succeeded.
Their stories of overcoming obstacles are not told, at least in their
totality. If they are told at all, it is just the success and wealth
part, not the part about how they got there. And then because they
studied hard, didn't take drugs, developed character, learned business
principles and succeeded, they are told their wealth must be taken from
them by Barack Obama and his legion of envious thieves to spread around
to those who made wrong decisions. Obama's economic doctrine subsidizes
people who make wrong decisions and does little to encourage them to
make right ones. Failure becomes an option, the flip side of success.
One can make money either way.
Two observations from another era in which the word "entitlement"
referred more to liberty than to someone else's earnings, ring true
today. Both are from Calvin Coolidge. First, "Don't expect to build up
the weak by pulling down the strong" and "The wise and correct course to
follow in taxation and in all other economic legislation is not to
destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions
under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful."
Or, if you prefer, John F. Kennedy at a Nov. 20, 1962 news conference:
"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues
are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run
is to cut the rates now. ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget
deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can
bring a budget surplus."
Several members of the Kennedy family have endorsed Obama. Maybe someone
will remind him of JFK's decidedly different approach to taxation,
prosperity and a "can do" spirit.
(Direct all MAIL for Cal Thomas to: Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore
Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207. Readers may also e-mail Cal Thomas
at tmseditors@tribune.com.
(c) 2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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Comments (2 posted)
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Posted by Kenny Noble, June 23, 2008 1:11:20"Nothing good has happened to the middle class since then"? That rings in my ears like Michelle Obama\'s statement that "this is the first time I\'ve ever been proud of my country".
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Posted by Bob Wynhausen, June 21, 2008 2:29:37You’re probably too young to remember, but when JFK became president our highest tax rate was 91%. Kennedy reduced the top rate to 70% and believed firmly in a progressive tax system. Dismantling that system, for the benefit of the rich and no one else is one of the reasons we are in the mess we are in. Until we restore strong unions and support workers in this country, we will continue to spiral in the direction we have been going since Ronald Reagan put us on this path. Look at history. From the end of the war until after the Carter Administration we had a thriving middle class. Nothing good has happened to the middle class since then. The rich got rich again. Just look at the growth of wealth of the Forbes 400. Even after adjusting for inflation, they have done better than anyone else and it’s not just entrepreneurial skill. By the way, I got a great laugh out your R vs. D presidential poll. Even you would have to agree that your readers are somewhat delusional.
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