The President of the United States said in a public address:
Taxes take from everyone a part of his earnings and force everyone to work for a certain part of his time for the government. . . . I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government—and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.
Obviously those are not the words of Barack Obama, from whom such a statement would be unthinkable. They are the words of President Calvin Coolidge from August 11, 1924.
Although Obama talks about “middle class tax cuts,” he does not seek to cut taxes; rather, he seeks to merely to prevent certain taxes from increasing. In today’s absurd political lingo, the lack of a tax hike is a “tax cut.” Meanwhile, Obama calls for nearly a trillion dollars in tax hikes over the next decade on “the wealthiest” Americans—those earning over $250,000 annually—while calling for trivial restraints on the expansion of federal spending.
Coolidge pointed out the insanity of class-envy taxes that punish the most successful Americans: “The wage earner . . . makes his contribution, perhaps not directly but indirectly, in the advanced cost of everything he buys. The expenses of government reach everybody.”
Obama’s tax-and-spend policies constitute “a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.” It is time for Americans who care about their liberties to recognize that fact, to state it openly, and to advocate their right to the “rewards of their own industry.”
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