We're Approaching the Tipping Point

Of all the new poll numbers on all sorts of subjects that have come out recently, one number  in particular caught my eye.  It’s from the latest CBS News/New York Times poll and it tells us that a whopping 66 percent of Americans believe that wealth should be more evenly spread around in this country.

Or to put it another way, two-thirds of Americans think that rich people have too much money -- and that everyone else doesn't have enough.

Or to put it still another way, we’re approaching a tipping point in this country, if we haven’t already reached it.  In science, a tipping point is the point at which a system is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a different state.  The tipping point here is the one that takes us from capitalism to socialism.

It’s bad enough when about half of Americans don’t pay any federal income tax and get all the goodies – like national security and interstate highways – for free.  We can understand how that creates an entitlement mentality. But now we have a majority of Americans who think that wealth is not fairly distributed in this country – and they want some of that money.   This explains why, according to the same poll, two-thirds of Americans are in favor of raising taxes on millionaires.

This is how re-distribution of the wealth works:  the government takes from the so-called rich and gives it to everyone who isn’t rich.  Never mind that the rich may have more intelligence or more talent than the rest, or that they simply might have a more marketable skill. And never mind the simple fact that it's their money -- no matter how they got it, as long is they got it legally.  So what, say the 66 percent.  They have it and we want it!

They sound a lot like the Occupy Wall Street protestors, which explains why nearly half of those polled say the demonstrators represent the feelings of most Americans.

As depressing as these numbers are, they're  gold nuggets for President Obama who, as I’ve written before, will run his campaign for re-election pretty much on just one issue:  Republicans only care about rich people.  They don’t care if  everyone else loses their home, can’t afford food and dies in the street.

President Obama, at heart, is a ruthless left-wing politician.  Despite his lofty rhetoric and engaging smile, he will happily divide Americans based on their net worth.  He won’t care about turning Americans against each other.  He has seen these poll numbers and with unemployment holding steady at over 9 percent, they surely have given him hope.