Is Obama a Marxist?

One of Barack Obama's key items in his platform is his promise to "tax the rich". He's garnered a lot of support from people who make less than $250K per year because they assume they'll get a larger piece of the pie under his administration.

Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, have tried to deflect criticism that he's espousing Marxist doctrine by claiming he just wants to transfer back the wealth that was "stolen" from the middle class by the upper class. However, he has said in his own words not only that he thinks redistribution of wealth (a decidedly Marxist principle) is a good thing, but how he believes it can be accomplished using the courts or legislative branch!

Obama Affinity to Marxists Dates Back to College Days - From the article: "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists." This article also delves a little bit into the not-widely-publicized issue of his affiliation with the unapologetic William Ayers, a self-proclaimed Marxist and domestic terrorist.

I cannot understand why people can't see him for what he is. Do people in this country really not look at more than the glossy rhetoric he uses during his ads and speeches? Or do the liberals actually want our country to become a Socialist/Marxist/Communist state?

Someone asked me what the problem was with taking money from the "rich" and giving it "back" to the middle-class. I have several problems with statements like this.

First, the definition of rich... If you only make $20K per year, you would probably consider someone making $100K to be rich. If you make 60K, you probably consider $200K to be rich. At $100K maybe the line is at $250K, and so on... So, who is right? Why does anybody have the right to decide how much is too much to earn? Shouldn't someone who makes $250K have the same right to their own hard-earned money as the person who makes $10K?

Second, the claim that the upper-earners have somehow unfairly stolen this money from the middle class. Joe Biden keeps saying he and Obama just want to give the money back where it was taken from. The implication is that the rich have stolen this money from the middle class due to the Bush tax cuts. Obama's tax plan in fact even wants the top 2 brackets restored to what they were pre-Bush, and wants it to be retroactive. They see it as correcting a past wrong. However, they didn't steal anything from the lower classes, they simply got to keep some of the money they'd earned in the first place. In fact, they still paid a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than the middle class did.

Third, the whole idea that the government has any business taking money from one group and redistributing it among another group is absolutely ridiculous. The only way that holds water is if that money was truly stolen through fraud or other illegal action. Last I checked, none of the rich folks have ever broken into my house to steal my money.

I've also heard the argument that since the rich are able to make money off the poor and middle class it's only fair to give back some of that money. This flies in the face of Capitalism (which is probably the arguer's goal), since the difference is that the business owners are making money by selling goods and services. Nobody has a right to a TV, air conditioner, computer, board games, roller skates, designer shoes, car, or any of the other millions of products that people buy every day... They buy them because they want them and feel that the price they pay is worth whatever they get out of the product. So by even trying to cry foul after they've bought something that the people they bought it from made money off of them is ludicrous.

The only fair way to redistribute wealth is through jobs. But you cannot force a company to hire more workers, they have to have a reason to do so, and the means to accomplish it. In other words, they have to need more workers to produce or sell their products, and the funds or credit to pay their wages. Increasing taxes is going to take away the companies' ability to hire more workers. That in turn means the workers have less money to spend on things, meaning the companies will sell less products, and need less workers.

Obama claims he wants to write a check to every person and family who works but makes less than about $150K (though doesn't mention that his plan is actually only for those who do not itemize, which excludes a large number of middle-class families, especially homeowners). That includes people who pay no taxes now because their income is below about $28K! How is it fair to increase taxes on someone making $250k and give a $500 check to a person who doesn't even pay taxes in the first place? That's just another form of welfare, and is not fair. Fair is when everyone gets paid for what they actually produce. An even exchange of money for products or services.

Value for value.