It is a meaningless term in the progressive lexicon because it actually means "I want to tax you until your last cent is gone."
Progressives truly believe that there will be funding until the last cent is gone and until the last person who has any ability to create value is taxed at a 100% rate. They assume that people will just continue to send in rubles “for the good of the country” and all they have to do is keep on spending. In 99.9% of the money grabs, there is never a concern from whence the money comes.
I find the campaign pitches of candidates who brag about “bringing money home to the district” offensive. I find these distasteful because they promote and mainstream the idea that the government is a magical piggy bank and all we have to do is put on our ruby slippers, click our heels three times and all of our wishes will come true – we will be showered in OPM (Other People’s Money). It promotes the idea that the sweet, sweet government money originates from a faceless entity called “big government”, not from the sweat, labor and innovation of productive individuals in this country.
Well, Auntie Em, we ain’t in Kansas anymore.
Now we see that the top 20% pay 88% of all income taxes. TO me, this means there is a dangerous concentration of the burden of government. To a progressive, this just means there is "income inequality", the top has all the money, therefore they must pay more.
They are Willie Sutton progressives.
Sutton was a prolific bank robber back in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. In a biography, Sutton is recorded as being asked why he focused on robbing so many banks over his 40 year criminal career. Legend has it that his sardonic reply was:
"Because that is where the money is."
Money is just a representation of what you own; a dollar bill is just as much private property as a house, a tract of land or a car. The only difference is that “money” is fungible – it can be easily transferred, transported and is universally accepted as a medium of exchange during the conduct of commerce. It is also far less personal and intimate than a house, personal belongings or land that a family lives on, farms or otherwise enjoys. These two things, being easily transferred and less intimate are essential in efficient economic transactions but those are also significant downsides – it makes it far easier to confiscate (see the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943).
It is not just about taxes. I take the long view of this debate. What we are seeing from the American left is an open assault on one of the cornerstones of freedom – the ownership of private property.
Try these quotes on for size:
“The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
~ Karl Marx
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
~ Adolph Hitler
“What’s happened is that we’ve allowed the vast majority of that cash to be concentrated in the hands of just a few people, and they’re not circulating that cash. They’re sitting on the money. That’s not theirs, that’s a national resource, that’s ours. We all have this… we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it.”
~ Michael Moore
See the similarities to the "fair share" argument that is constantly advanced by the progressives?
Do not be fooled. While the American left screams in faux pain and disgust when they are accurately tagged as socialists/Marxists/communists, they are without question following a path to confiscation of private property (wealth) for the purposes of redistribution according to their desires.
The inconsistency of their positions to the concept of individual freedom is stark – while their alignment with Marx’s Communist Manifesto is clear. Most claim the intellectual and moral high ground, never realizing they have aligned themselves with the most deadly immoral force in history - communism.
They are the modern incarnation of Lenin’s “useful idiots”.
