Let’s look at the cognitive dissonance:
If you’re baffled by college students’ enthusiastic support for Soviet-lite economic policies, you need to watch several short videos created by members of Young America’s Foundation (YAF).
In the videos, YAF members approach their classmates with a petition calling for the redistribution of student GPAs. “It would make it so that all students have an equal opportunity to go to grad school,” University of Oregon YAFer Kenny Crabtree explains. Students with bad grades would therefore be entitled to points earned by straight-A students.
Their classmates are flabbergasted.
“Is that, like, a joke or something?” one guy responds.
“Why would you take points from people who are higher up and give them to people who didn’t meet the requirements?” another asks George Mason University YAFers. But when asked if he supports Obama’s wealth redistribution schemes, he says “yes.”
Amazing how spreading the wealth around gets a bit less attractive when it’s something you own that’s being spread around.
I read this article and was struck by Ashley Herzog’s assertion:
“most people who support Obama’s plan to “spread the wealth around” either don’t pay income taxes or are too rich to care.”
Besides that Obama’s quote was blown way out of proportion by his Townhall.com detractors (and others of their ilk), let’s see if Herzog’s assertion is right.
Did the people who voted for Obama pay taxes or are too rich to care? Let’s say that “most” is defined by over 50%. This is a very small threshold for “most,” but in a democracy, it can work that way.
Data come from CNN 2008 exit polls: http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
Income:
Most of those from 0 to $50,000 a year voted for Obama.
Most of those 75 – 100,000 a year voted for Obama. Most of those 100 – 200,000 a year voted for McCain.
Most of those 200,000 or more voted for Obama.
Other income brackets have no clear distinction between Obama and McCain voters.
The only way Herzog’s claim could be true is if “taxpayers” are those who make 100 – 200,000 a year. This is not so. Herzog’s claim is false.
Voting for Obama doesn’t mean specifically that you approve of his plan to spread the wealth around. It CAN, but it doesn’t have to. Few people (other than those blinded by the aura of hope, change, optimism, and unicorn farts) supported ALL of Obama’s policies, yet they voted for him anyway because they didn’t like McCain, or really wanted to bend over to international terrorism, or really really liked the smell of unicorn farts.
Herzog’s claim isn’t demonstrably false. It’s only false when viewed through the prism of your single criterion, measured by a journalistic outfit that’s no more trustworthy than Pravda.
Unicorns don’t fart.