Almost comically, President Obama has begun his appeal for re-election by bashing the 1% – who got him elected with their campaign donations in 2008 – and appealing to the 99% – about half of whom pay no taxes and must certainly figure “why not?” when it comes to more government spending. After all, when you’ve got no skin in the game, what harm can more spending do? A lot, actually, but that’s a story for another day. If it wasn’t certain before, Obama’s State of the Union speech made it clear that a little bit of “class warfare” was at play.
Noted Obama, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” Whether Obama crony capitalists like Warren Buffett and George Soros will be made to play by those same rules – which would be a huge change of direction for Obama thus far – remains to be seen.
There is conjecture that part of Obama’s “fair share” speech was directed at Mitt Romney, who recently released his tax returns, indicating an effective tax rate of under 15% for 2010. If so, that’s probably a wise strategy, as the president can likely count on the ignorance of the masses to propel him forward in 2012, just at it did in 2008. Of course, that there is no viable alternative to Obama among the current frontrunners in the GOP primary race doesn’t make the task of picking a true leader any easier. In fact, it indicates that it is impossible. But that, also, is a story for another day.