Those remarks, if they were isolated, would be of no real interest. But in fact President Obama's comments at Loyola pre-date, and pre-shadow, comments he made during the 2008 campaign, when he told Joe Wurzelbacher, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody." And as president, Mr. Obama clarified this thought further, suggesting that Americans don’t really earn their success. “If you’ve got a business,” he said, “you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
These comments, then, are shafts of light that illuminate the president's political philosophy. He is a person with deep convictions when it comes to the redistribution of wealth. Regardless of what the existing tax rates are, he favors more redistribution. It is an animating principle for Mr. Obama.
For some who comprise the political class, merely to point this out is considered unsophisticated, simplistic, and declasse. To use President Obama's own words over the years to describe his belief system borders on being a political dirty trick. The reason is because doing so runs counter to the image the president likes to present of himself as pragmatic, post-ideological, a man who transcends conventional political labels. His problem is that the curtain was pulled back some time ago; the post-ideological Obama has been revealed to be a man of deep liberal convictions. He believes the ever-greater redistribution of income is not simply an economic policy but a moral virtue.
Consider for a moment the answer President Obama gave to ABC's Charles Gibson in a 2008 debate with Hillary Clinton. When Mr. Gibson asked the president why he would support raising capital gains taxes given the historical record of government's losing net revenue as a result. "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital-gains tax for purposes of fairness." Note well: Mr. Obama's chief aim when it comes to taxes isn't, as he and other liberals sometime insist, to raise revenues. Rather, it is to advance their understanding of "fairness," which they take to be synonymous with justice, both taken to mean that the rich should never have too much more than the poor.
This helps explain the president's obsession with raising taxes on the upper brackets. He does this despite the fact that these tax hikes would hit small businesses very hard. Despite the fact that according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), income taxes in America are the most progressive among the rich nations of the world. Despite the fact that, as the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore has observed, the "richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country's income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden." Despite the fact that no credible economic theory argues for raising taxes during such a weak economic recovery. And despite the fact that the president's proposal to raise taxes on families making $250,000 a year would barely make a dent in the deficit.
The problem, though, isn't only that Mr. Obama always favors more redistribution; it's that he's unable to produce growth. And the two are interconnected.
Under the president nearly all the economic trends are going in the wrong direction. Spending, deficits, debt, health care costs, college tuition, gas prices and poverty have all gone up while employment, the workforce participation rate, median household income and America's credit rating have all gone down. And he has no credible plan for turning things around beyond increasing taxes in order to spread the wealth around.
The real problem with redistribution is that it's a way of dealing with what one believes to be an inescapable decline. It's a way of dividing an economy rather than growing it. To understand why, it's worth sketching out the competing philosophies surrounding redistribution.
If the assumption is that we are stuck with a set amount of resources, then the way to address the fact that some people don’t have enough is to take some from others who have more than they absolutely need and so equalize things some. But if we believe that we're not stuck with a set amount of resources, that the economy can grow, then the way to help those who do not have enough is to help the economy grow. That will inevitably be a more effective way to help people in every station in life, but most especially the poor. It's a way that allows them to rise rather than just giving them a little more money where they are, and it does so without taking from others. (Some portion of the population can’t rise for a variety of reasons, and we owe them support and succor. But the great majority of people can, and if one takes redistribution to be the essence of our approach to the fact of poverty then you’re implicitly assuming that our economy is stagnant, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.)
The alternative to a president who believes in more redistribution and in spreading the wealth around is economic growth, greater opportunity and social mobility, and the possibility of advancement for people at every stage of life.
Social mobility is the central moral promise of American economic life; the hallmark of our system has always been the potential for advancement and greater prosperity rooted in merit and hard work, rather than in the circumstances of one's birth. Yet while social mobility has long been at the heart of the American Dream, social mobility is declining. The reason for this is complex, including misguided economic policies, the poor quality of our education, and a weak family structure, among other things.
At the heart of this election is a profoundly different understanding of how to generate economic growth and equip Americans, and especially the poor, with the skills, values, and habits that will allow them to succeed in a modern, free society.
The president has a vision and record we can judge him by: increasing the size, cost, and reach of the state; increasing dependency on government; and increasing taxes to pay for it. The result has been economic stagnation and greater human misery. The alternative set forth by Governor Romney and Representative Ryan is based on limited government, a growing economy, and reforming our tax code, entitlement system and schools to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This agenda, both ambitious and necessary, would create greater opportunity and equip people to live lives of independence and dignity. This may not compare to promises to heal the planet and slow the rise of the oceans. But it reflects what is achievable and most consistent with American ideals. It is a step toward genuine justice.
-Peter Wehner
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