In Obama's World, The Government Owns Your Paycheck

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Investors Business Daily:

Government: Still smarting from his "you didn't build that" comment, President Obama opened another window into his far-left thinking. According to his world view, Americans keeping more of what's theirs is a "giveaway."

Speaking last Wednesday in New Orleans at a campaign event, Obama talked about "another trillion-dollar giveaway for millionaires" in reference to an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

A day later, White House spokesman Jay Carney did the same thing. He called the extension "another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans."

What they are talking about is the House Republicans' opposition to legislation approved in the Senate that would raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, a sum less than the president makes yet is somehow considered to be the mark of wealth.

As a president who has done a good job of insulating himself from anyone who would challenge him, Obama wasn't asked to explain his statement.

But Carney was.

ABC's Jake Tapper wanted to know what he would "say to a small-business owner who says that's not a giveaway, that's my money, and by the way, I'm going to need some of that money in order to help pay the health care of individuals that I'm now mandated to do?"

Tapper further said, "It's not giving anything away; it's allowing me to keep my money."

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It's a straightforward question that deserves a straightforward answer.

But it didn't get one. Carney prattled on in response, but he would not address the point, which is:

How can government officials make a moral claim on money earned by others?

The public needs to be clear about how this administration and many Democrats think. It's more than a big-government mindset. It's a government-is-god mentality.

The idea that government owns all and has the authority to manage everyone's life is corrosive. The president doesn't think that individuals should be recognized and compensated for their business success.

He wants to take them down a few notches and diminish and socialize their achievements. That's neither a plan for prosperity nor an advancement of human dignity.

The language is as disturbing as it sounds. It is not consistent with deeply cherished ideals of American freedom. It is not democratic. It is not republican. It is primitive, tribal, backward, regressive. It hearkens back to an earlier age in which monarchs ruled absolutely and, as well, a more recent era of totalitarian governments.