By BOB BILLETER

Want To Buy a Brooklyn Bridge?

It is amazing, I think, to hear President Obama go on and on about how "the rich" aren't paying their fair share in our near-bankrupt and debt-ridden society. It is one of Obama's favorite themes and of course we are going to hear it about every day until next November.
And yet his supporters will wax angry and tell you that he does not engage in class warfare.
Who are "the rich"? Well, it depends on which day you listen to the liberals and the Washington politicos. Sometimes we hear that they are people who make $200,000 a year. If you add up all the federal, state and local taxes that many people with such an income make you will find that many of them are lucky to make $100,000 after taxes. But no matter, they are fat cat capitalists and they should be forced to pay "their fair share" of taxes.
"Fair share" are also words that Obama likes to bandy around. Who determines what a fair share of taxes are? Why he does, of course.
Isn't it amazing, the most prominent of the Founding Fathers of our country were the rich—you know, the people who gave us the republic we enjoy today. Had Obama been around in Colonial days he would have demanded that George Washington be forced to sell Mount Vernon and that Jefferson sell Monticello so they could pay their "fair share" of taxes.
Don't scoff, had Jefferson and Washington been paying 50 percent of their income in taxes they probably would have had to sell their estates.
But the President doesn't engage in class warfare, his followers tell us. Liberals like Obama will never be satisfied until everyone in America is pounded down to the same level—until everyone, whether you are a factory manager or a garbage collector, is making say about $30,000 a year.
Let me correct that statement. I don't mean everyone. The liberals who will be in power in Washington will be allowed to make more money. They will become "the rich."
This is always the way it is. Remember when Khrushchev, the leader of the Russian workers' paradise, and his wife came to America during the Cold War and she went to Tiffany's, the jewelry store in New York City, and spent a fortune on jewelry?
Most of the people in Russia had been pounded down to a level where they were lucky to have a decent pair of shoes but Mrs. Khrushchev could shop at Tiffany's. This is the paradise the liberals around the world have always sought for their societies. It's evil it seems to have much capital unless you are a Marxist style politician.
The American people praise and admire the Founding Fathers but ignore most of the principles they stood for. Their ideas have been dumped into the garbage can by a society that prefers what it sees as security over rights and freedom. If we stay on this path, we are going to end up without rights, freedom or security.
Mr. Jefferson, probably the most brilliant political thinker ever born in our country, tried to tell us that "that government is best that governs least." We have come to believe that that government is best that controls everything—even our checkbooks.
We the people are too dumb to know how to spend money. We should give most of our money to the people who have bankrupted our country. They will show us how it should be spent.
They also have a bridge in Brooklyn they would like to sell you. You can have it, they will tell you, for a real bargain price.