Heard this on Rush Limbaugh today and thought it was great. My 10 year old son heard it too! He thought it was AWFUL and thinks that he can NOT ALLOW someone to do this. Only way for that to happen is to NOT ALLOW Obama to be president by NOT VOTING for him.
According to Rush Limbaugh, this is how you explain Obama's Redistribution of Wealth Plan to your kids:
After you come in from trick or treating with your giant stash of Halloween candy that you worked so hard walking around the neighborhood for hours to collect - I, as your parent, HAVE to take 1/2 of your candy and give it to the kids who stayed home and didn't go trick or treating.
My son went ballistic! "No one is taking my candy from me! If they didn't go out trick or treating that's their own fault! They don't deserve any candy!"
What a great point Rush made with this. McCain should be using this scenario in his campaign. It's right at the intelligence level of the people who plan to vote for Obama.
13 comments:
Somehow I don't think most of the people who plan on voting for Barack Obama (I already did, by the way) are going to be listening to Rush Limbaugh.
That is a cute analogy, though. I hope you explained the flaws in it to your son.
I know people that people who would vote for Obama would not be listening to Rush Limbaugh (actually I don't usually, for some reason it was catching my attention today). That is why McCain's camp needs to pick up on this. McCain's campaign needs to dig down deep and FIGHT like they claimed they were going to do at the Rep. Convention.
what if the kids who did not go were blind, disabled sick at the time? What if their parents were out working and could not take them? What if only one of your kids went out and his siblings stayed home? There are many reasons, yes? I hope you made your kid understand the meaning of sharing.
There is a HUGE difference between being kind by sharing and flat out being TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.
It should be up to the person if they want to "share" their wealth, not the government.
My kids do know how to share. Per my son "I just don't want to be stolen from."
That's perfect! I especially love your son's comment "I don't want to be stolen from"! You're right, there is a HUGE difference between being stolen from and sharing. There is also a HUGE difference between sharing with those who deserve it and those who just sit back and wait for their candy to be handed to them because they don't feel like getting off their fat butt to go do their own trick-or-treating.
You know, I used to listen to Rush int he 80's and 90's and was amused at his use of absurdity to point out the absurd, but over the past few years he has gotten into weird territory. Anyway, I digress. The distribution of wealth term is a nice code-word for some neo conservatives who like to evoke images of the KGB-like agents taking half the wages of the hard-working citizen and giving it to the lazy people who do nothing but sit home all day. There are three inherent flaws in this analogy. First, the redistribution of wealth is already happening under George W. Bush through the $700 billion bailout of the very same people who started this mess; bankers and investment firms who guarantee their top CEOs tens of millions of dollars in golden parachutes (the CEO of Washington Mutual, for example, was working for three whole weeks before WaMu was bought by JP Morgan/Chase and he got paid 17 million for those three weeks work). Second, the idea that half your earnings would be taken away is patently false; if you are referring to FICA and other taxes that are taken out, I might point out that if you earned less than the national average ($32,000 a year according to the IRS), you get all your income tax back from the Fed and most from the State. Those above get less, of course, but even a millionaire with a child still gets the earned income tax credit for that child. Redistribution of the wealth via Obama's plan asks for a 3.5% increase on the tax rate for those making over 250,000 a year with those making under 150,000 a year receiving a tax cut. Finally, and most egregiously, the assumption that there are "lazy kids" who are soaking up taxpayer money for doing nothing. There is no such thing as do-nothing welfare in any state in the union. Those who receive welfare must either be enrolled in a school, be actively seeking a job at the social services office, or they receive no benefits. The people who most receive government hand outs are, in order of amount (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2007-2008 report); Farmers who receive subsidies, Medicare benefits, Social Security benefits, Child welfare programs (Childrens Health Insurance Programs [CHIP]) which cover basic immunization and 'wellcare' visits in clinics, and at #12 on the list, federal subsidies for social services programs such as welfare. In conclusion, you should also note to your son who loves his candy that if he wants to continue to enjoy those yummy treats he'd better be willing to give some up so the farmer can continue making high fructose corn syrup for cheap candy that is given out at Halloween.
Thanks for the Blog and the opportunity to discuss stuff here - CHEERS!
hmmm...I actually have better things to do today then to get on a soapbox but I somehow never pass that opportunity up! :-)
For the record...I am currently an undecided voter leaning towards McCain solely based on who has less strikes against them. (which by the way IMO is not how we should be voting)
Bush albeit has not been a GRADE A or C president!
Bailout...Clinton got us into to this situation when he decided that everyone should own a home! Do your homework and you will see that the current administration is only taking the fall for somebody else's decisions....
Social Issues...This problem was created with the creation of welfare back with the New Deal of Roosevelt. While the idea was a good one the result has been a bad one.
Before anyone goes ape on me, let me explain. Yes, there is always a situation that may require government assistance and as a fellow American I am all for helping those TEMPORARILY down and out in hopes that if I need it they will do the same for me.
BUT...
when generations of families are using it as a way of life then that is where the problem lies. Perfect example...KATRINA! It was our fault that they couldn't heed the warning and get out of there...why is that? because we have created a society that is dependent upon the government to bail us out because they take care of everything else for us. There are people is this country who have NO clue how to live on their own! Yes Michael welfare recipients are suppose to go out and attempt to get jobs but after years of working management I have seen how they 'work' the system. They come in to places where they know they do not have the skills, or are not hiring and then get you to sign off that they have inquired. Another note...with the years of welfare has come an increase in the amount of crime and prisoners. I know that people don't want to play the bad guy but this is just reality.
All I'm saying is that the government assistance program has got to be reformed in order to change society. It would be very painful for those in the system now but it would give those future generations a ray of hope! Unfortunately, no one has the balls to stand up and try to fix it but giving more to this system isn't going to fix it either!
So once again I'm back to...who's is the lesser of two evils?
A note on those who are in college that can receive Welfare benefits. Most of those "college students" receiving welfare are also receiving government funds to attend college because they qualify due to being low income. So, part of MY money is going to pay for them to have a roof over their head, food on the table and "go to school"??? However, when it comes time for my kids to attend college, I pay for their tuition (out of my hard earned money that I've actually saved for this purpose) PLUS money out of my paycheck goes towards Welfare so that all of those lazy ass people can "go to school" and will likely NEVER have a paycheck that puts money back into the Welfare pot because it is considered too low of an income??? Give me a break - there is something very wrong with that!!
One last thing...I have only been in the "deep south" for a few years and one thing that should have pointed out is that if you have never lived in the "deep south" then you are very immune to the problems with the welfare system as I was before moving here. I live in a county that is majority poverty and welfare. It is a sad, heartbreaking place that causes you to have every emotion possible! I moved here with a heart of hope to change and help everyone want to help themselves but 12 years later the hard core facts are that they don't want to help themselves because they don't have to...
All the liberals in the nation need to move down here for a year and actually experience the reality of our government. It all looks good on paper even to me but I'm jaded now!
I hate to spoil your morning cup of coffee with a dose of reality but we all must pull our heads out of the trenches of this fantasy we are living in....
That's the problem when you lump everybody into one bin and put a label on them. Social programs help people become productive. Productivity leads to employment, employment leads to earnings and earnings lead to revenues. These revenues in turn are used for public schools, public health care and public infrastructure. If you don't want government stealing your money, don't pay your taxes. Be thankful that you guys have deeper pockets than most, because if you're the ones in their shoes, I'm sure you'd want to spread the wealth. Peace to all and I hope you give it a deeper thought.
Again, I don't mind paying taxes for infrastructure and what is NEEDED. I'm sick of paying for all this unneeded extra stuff (and both parties are at fault for this) like the study of bears up in some northern state.
Also, enough is enough when you start taxing at such a high rate.
Obama's problem is the way he terms it and talks about it. And he's been talking this way for years upon years back when he was an IL state legislature. He seems to think the civil rights movement didn't go far enough. He wants to spread the wealth and give to all who he thinks has been so unjustly denied. I'll see if I can somehow get the video uploaded (tried before but I'm not very techno). All his nonsense comes right out of Obama's mouth itself.
Schumey...
hmmm deeper thought? I can't get much deeper in my thoughts...I do pay my taxes(happily I might add) and I do and will help anyone but for us to believe that the US social programs are actually helping the MAJORITY of the people who use them then you my friend are the person I'm talking about living in a fantasy world!
Just for the record...I nowhere lumped EVERYONE into the same pot. I am talking about the welfare program, it's abusers (whom are more then less) and we Americans calling for social reform in this nation!
Vote on Tuesday for whom you think will best serve this country and I hope in 4 years one(cause I don't think it's either) of them has done something that is RIGHT!
Thanks for the feedback, Jill. I seem to remember somewhere reading somewhere that during a good portion of Bill Clinton's term that he (along with Newt Gingrich's Republican-led Congress) did deregulate the mortgage industry, but the assertion that his government (or even George Bush's) "made" a business give out bad loans is ludicrous. Alan Greenspan said that he had assumed that land values would never bottom out this way and it made him question a lifetime of economic philosophy he had been operating under. A female executive (whose name escapes me at the moment) for Lehman Brothers claimed that the banking and financial institutions brought this upon themselves by giving out bad loans and then insuring those loans as a means of betting both sides of the table (that's why AIG almost went under).
On to social programs; yes, absolutely there are people who cheat the system of social welfare and it is reprehensible. If only they were more like the rest of the United States who never cheats on their taxes, or goofs off at work, or puts harmful (and cheap) chemicals in their wholesome food products, or lies on an application, or calls in sick when they really don't feel like working today, or hides accounting losses deep inside ledgers so that auditors might miss them, or shops around different doctors to stock up on prescription pain medications to feed an addiction they deny having. Yup, I'm glad red-blooded working Americans are the paragons of virtue and are able to judge the obviously morally-bankrupt recipients of welfare, social security, and Medicare.
As for Katrina; here's the deal. People were stupid. Every hurricane television crews interview the dumb-ass who decides to ride out the storm. These people assume that their being at home protects their valuables when in reality it doesn't. The reason why the levies failed and deluged the lower 9th ward is because government spending went somewhere else other than the levy system; that is shameful and is a black eye on the government as it should be. That's why that bridge in mostly-white Minnesota collapsed, too, by the way. Others in Katrina, however, were too ill to move (those in the hospitals and retirement homes) and the city should have coordinated evacuation efforts better, but again, that's not the fed's job.
BTW, I do do my homework, including looking up actual government documents instead of listening to radio personalities, since I am a professional historian.
Thanks for the great blog and the forum for voicing opinions!
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