Today’s Wall Street Journal contains two especially good letters regarding Obama’s wish to redistribute wealth more fairly. Air-head socialistic philosophy has serious real world consequences.
LETTERS
Wrench Turns Tighter for Enterprising Joe the Plumber
Regarding your editorial “Senator Government” (Oct. 16): As another “Joe the Plumber” who is a small business owner and making close to Barack Obama’s target wage, I can tell you what happens when the “rich” are soaked. Can anyone remember the luxury tax? Who got hurt by that? The rich? They had to live without their new yachts. The people who got soaked were the boat builders and their employees who didn’t have any yachts to build. It is not the government’s job to “spread the wealth.” Besides which, small corporations such as mine don’t “pay” taxes. We transfer the money from our customers to the federal government. Think about that the next time you purchase something from a small business — how much of what you are paying is going straight to Uncle Sam. Just another greedy finger in our pie.
Joe Clark
Master Plumber
Austin, Texas
So all of a sudden everybody has finally discovered that Sen. Obama, with his comment to Joe the Plumber, plans to “. . . spread the wealth around.” We should all be worried.
Months ago, Sen. Obama and the Democratic members of the House and Senate indicated they would tax the “windfall profits” of the oil companies. Allow me to translate.
We will confiscate and steal the profits that belong to the shareholders of the oil companies and distribute them to people who never risked a single cent or invested in those companies, just because it is “fair.”
Everybody cheers, not realizing that some of those profits belong to the pension plans of police, firemen, teachers, city, county and state employees, retired people, and thousands of 401(k)s. I suspect even some of those plumber and pipefitters unions have money invested in those companies.
I came from Cuba. I have seen this movie before, and I know how it ends. I have heard the same lines, spoken by different actors, the Castro brothers in my case and more recently by Hugo Ch?vez in Venezuela. With all his refined education and eloquence, Mr. Obama is just another socialist who thinks that our American-trained socialists will make socialism work here, while all those others around the world have failed. We are so much smarter here.
Luis Vicens
Pembroke Pines, Fla.