Fort Collins, Colorado

Saturday, March 13, 2010 | 55°F

by Seth Stern

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Seth Stern

When a state’s population exercises its voting and Tenth Amendment rights I typically find myself in an exuberant mood. Last week’s election in Oregon however, has taken me another direction.

First, I have to explain for the unaware, Oregon voters approved a targeted tax increase designed to reduce the state’s budget shortfall. I have no problem with a population making the difficult decision to raise taxes on themselves. Seriously that is fine with me.

Oregonians, however, raised the taxes on the top 2.5 percent of the state’s earners. While I am willing to accept some of you have been brainwashed by your professors, liberal politicians and other supporters of Karl Marx, and as a result see wealthy persons as evil, some of you will reject the “epic fail” of Marxist principles and see logic instead.

Though preceded by California, Oregon just proved conclusively that direct democracy is as guaranteed to fail as any other political system. When the masses –– comprised mostly of middle-to-lower income people –– realize they can legislate taking from the top, those who have succeeded lose their incentive to continue.

There is a misconception among liberals that people have some sort of moral obligation to take care of those less fortunate than themselves. What I find truly appalling is this idiotic concept of using government in any form as the vehicle to carry out this mandated altruism.

The reality of government is inefficiency. Period. Not once in history has government represented the most efficient means of doing anything. The president’s plan to distribute vaccines relies upon the U.S. Postal Service as the lead agency. Go to the Post Office off John F. Kennedy Parkway around noon someday; let me know how it goes.

If your life depends on the government’s efficient response, buy a bullet, rent the gun.

Back to Oregon, one of the most amusing responses to this lunacy comes from one of the patrons of modern liberalism. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley told the Wall Street Journal this week, “I’ve always thought America stands for (rewarding success). You finish high school. You work hard, go to college and you hope to succeed in life. I never knew it’s a class war — that those who succeed in life are the ones that have to bear all the burden. I never realized that. It will be a whole change in America that those who succeed and work hard, we’re gonna tax ‘em more than anyone else.”

When a Chicago politician is criticizing you for being too liberal, you may want to reconsider what it is you did to accomplish such a feat.
There is good news: The dim-witted Oregon voters have ensured the loss of most inbound residents in the targeted income brackets and many of the existing residents and corporations are now seeking residence elsewhere.

Mayor Daley applauded the shortsightedness of the Oregon voters for the simple reason they expect the revenue from soon-to-depart Oregonians will end up in his city.

In fact, Mayor Daley expressed his intent to recruit the besieged businesses to move to Chicago.

The fact of the matter is the successful have not done anything wrong by being successful. The businesses suffering at the hands of legislated socialism are largely the biggest employers in the state.

Now the unemployed who voted for this epic stupidity are chasing employers ­­–– prospective and existing –– out of the state.

The president has proposed a targeted increase in taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year to make up for his exorbitant budget shortfall. If he succeeds, the bottom 50 percent of the nation deserves to have the top 50 percent revolt.

This all comes down to a perception of entitlement. Apparently a great number of people feel the top performers financially in this country have done something wrong simply by being successful. That my friends, is an erroneous assumption.

If we allow the federal government to take from a population what they rightfully earned, we open the floodgates to them taking anything they want.
Believing in the benevolence of a government has never ended well. This one is no different.

Seth J. Stern is a senior journalism and sociology major. His hatred of liberalism is on display Fridays in the Collegian. Letters and feedback can be sent to letters@collegian.com.

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