All Too Clear

Today, of course, he realized he HAD to get in the game.   And he proceeded to do so by creating more heat than light, trotting out the hackneyed "us vs. 'the rich'" that's too often the trademark of liberalism when it comes to budget debates.  But hey, when all you've got to offer is a hammer -- the same old tired class warfare -- every problem looks like a nail.

In the President's speech, the weirdest moment, bar none, was his characterization of tax hikes as an effort to "reduce spending in the tax code."  It's a profoundly insulting description of non-taxing, insofar as it insinuates that government refraining from taxing Americans is somehow akin to "spending" activity by government.  That would only be true, of course, if government were somehow entitled to everyone's money, and (as I once heard another former Democrat US Senator from Illinois describe it) our "leaders" were "letting [taxpayers] keep more money."