You gotta start watchin' FOX and listenin' to right-wing talk radio a li'l more Todd.

Slab, if we as a society continue on the route we are headed (globalization, outsourcing of jobs, anti labor legislation, a stagnant economy, letting big business run this country, etc.) then it wont be too much longer before nobody will even remember what a "middle class" household looks like...... There wont BE a middle class. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and over time the middle class shrinks, until one day, you wake up and notice that this countries economic spread consists of a 1% elite class and a 99% low/peasant class. I admit, it is a stretch, but there ARE countries, whose "hands off" economic policies have contributed to an Economic dynamic of similar proportions. Would it be so out of line to hope that our government does whatever is nesessary to help preserve the American middle class?

Obviously this interview was when Obama was teaching law at the University of Chicago. Anybody here ever go to law school or take a college class in economics? Here's your math lesson for the day:

Obama doesn't equal Malcolm X

Socialist?

He was a downright Commie, my friend.

Yeah, save that socialist label for that gal in Alaska who raises taxes on the primary business there so she can spread all that wealth to her welfare citizens so they themselves don't have to pay any local taxes.

By the way, Hank, Alexander Hamilton (first Sec of Treasury) didn't agree with Jefferson and Madison. He argued that Congress's power to tax and spend for the general welfare was additional to its other powers. This view was supported by the Supreme Court in 1936 (US v. Butler) when it decided that the Taxing and Spending Clause was indeed a separate grant of power to Congress. Because the Court could determine for itself whether a particular tax or expenditure was in the general welfare of the country, however, it was limited to national, not local welfare.

Actually, I think the whole concept is not likely to get past all those suited DC'ers and their close friends who likely fall into the "take from" grouping.

Regardless of what O says, this is the deal. If you know any, lazy ass works when they want, still living at mom's house, sponge SOB'S. You now get to share your hard earned ca$h with them. No choice about that. You will do as the Obamamiester says. The constitution is out and that's that! What you don't want to pay. You must be racist! Got it! Sit, Stay, Roll Over!

<gibberish alert>

Erg

Anyone who thinks we don't have a middle class is nuts. First of all, technically we will always have a middle class, just where that is is what is in question. Remember the house most of us or our parents grew up in. The one with 2 or 3 bedrooms and one bath and maybe a single car garage? Well, those houses are now reserved for those on section 8. My mother-in-law is on disability. She has a nice apartment, cable TV, car, cell phone, and can't wait for Obama to be elected. A 2,000 + sq ft home, 3 TV's, 2 computers, 2 brand new cars, money to eat out every day for lunch and 3 times a week in the evening and a trip to disney land or Hawaii every year. That's what most people think middle class should mean. Maybe it should. But should everyone have it. The level of the lower standard of income is what is in question. If you believe that people are starving and can't survive, then redistribution is necessary. Remember, unless, of course, you have true communism there will always be a low, middle and higher class. Don't let the fact that CEO's of some companies are making billions of our money under quesionable circumstances allow you to think that the fundamental basis of our capitialistic system is flawed. It isn't. Rather than punish everyone, congress needs to clean up the flawed policies that allowed the banking and corporate fraud. Otherwise we will all end up paying more taxes while everything else stays the same.