"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Barack Obama proclaimed many times during the campaign. He and his throngs of supporters preened in the glow of their own righteousness like cats in a puddle of sunlight. They were for "shared sacrifice" and a "new era of responsibility." They wanted to put aside the "old politics" and the "tired arguments" of the past.

Well, where are those people now?

Obama brags -- albeit dishonestly -- that he's only raising taxes on rich people. Ninety-five percent of the American people will get a tax cut, the president insists.

Well, which is it? Do the times demand shared sacrifice from us all, or from just 5 percent of Americans?

If I say to 10 co-workers, "We all need to chip in together to get this done," and then say, "So, Todd, open your wallet and give five bucks to everyone else in the room," it would sound ridiculous. But when Obama says the same thing to 300 million Americans it's called "leadership."

"The problem with socialism," Margaret Thatcher once said, "is that you eventually run out of other people's money." What Obama is proposing isn't socialism -- yet -- but it runs into the same problem. You could take all of the money made by the richest 1 percent in this country and it wouldn't come close to covering government's expenses -- even if those rich people for some reason kept working.

Our income tax system is already extremely progressive, and it provides roughly half of all government revenue (add corporate income taxes, and it covers nearly three-fifths of all government revenue). The top 5 percent of earners pay more than 60 percent of income taxes. The top 10 percent of earners pay more than 70 percent. And the top half of earners pay just shy of 100 percent of income taxes. Estate and gift taxes are even more progressive.

Now, it's true that the low wage earners who pay no income taxes do contribute in other ways. Sales taxes, payroll taxes and other hidden taxes take a mighty bite out of the working poor and lower-middle class. Continued...