San Antonio mayor Julian Castro became the first Hispanic to deliver a keynote speech at a Democrat National Convention last night. His face may be new, but his message is old: old and tiring. Castro repeated the Democrat mantra that their pitch is not intended to be class warfare, not intended to stir up feelings of envy or friction between the rich and the not-so-rich. They may say this constant banging of the same drum is not supposed to be class warfare, but what else can it be?
If it is not class warfare, perhaps it is ignorance. Perhaps the Dems are ignorant of the fact that recent statistics show that the top 5% of earners in this country pay nearly 60% of all taxes. Perhaps they are ignorant of the fact that the top 1% of earners (those despised by the 99) paid 39% of all taxes in 2009. Put another way, the top 1% had only 17% of total income, but paid nearly 40% of the taxes collected that year. In fact, if the total annual earnings of the 1% were deposited in the Federal treasury (that's a 100% tax rate,) its effect on the budget would be like putting one brick in the Great Wall of China.
If the Democrats' cry for the 1% to do their "fair share" is not class warfare, perhaps it is a misunderstanding. Perhaps we do not share the same meaning of the word "fair." If paying the lion's share of taxes does not constitute a "fair share," perhaps we need to recognize what "fair" means to today's progressives. Although they hate being called socialists, their wealth redistribution policies clearly lean in that direction (see my blog on that.) "Fair" to a socialist is everyone earning the same amount; no one is rich and no one is poor. The problem with this understanding of "fair" is that every time it has been tried, while the citizens do become equally poor, there are still the rich. Those who decide how to manage the redistribution of wealth always seem to hang onto a substantial portion for themselves.
If the Democrat mantra is not class warfare or ignorance or misunderstanding, perhaps it is just one example of the change we were invited to share in with Barak Obama. It certainly represents a change from the way we used to see ourselves. To quote Condaleezza Rice at the Republican National Convention, "My fellow Americans, ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. We have never believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well. We have never been jealous of one another and never envious of each others' successes." The Democrats want us to believe that the generation of wealth is a zero sum game: if one person gets rich, inevitably someone else must be made poor. This simply is not so.
I believe that an intelligent observer must conclude that the Democrats are in fact trying to create division in the electorate. They are using what has long been called class warfare to incite the middle and lower classes to vote on the basis of their feelings of envy and entitlement. They want voters to forget what Mitt Romney would call the norm in our country: "In America we celebrate success; we don't apologize for success," he said in his RNC acceptance speech. As Christians we are commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice (in their success too.) As Christians we are commanded not to be envious (to covet) our neighbors' possessions.
The Democrats are trying to make us break both of these commands. The scary thing is that this tactic is proving successful. In a country where over 50% of citizens pay no Federal income tax at all, where nearly 50% of households receive some type of government aid, it is no wonder that a large number of people want the gravy train to continue. This is scary because it could be our undoing. To quote Rice again, "There is no country, no, not even a rising China that can do more harm to us than we can do to ourselves if we do not do the hard work before us here at home." It is often "hard work" to avoid being drawn into sin. We must not let the Democrats take us there, no matter what they call their program.
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