America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ “toxic assets” was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s “systemic collapse.” In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.

Soaking the Rich

Liberals have an amazing ability to overlook the obvious. This is particularly true when it comes to deficits and debt. Their proposals to tax their way to solvency is akin to proposing to rescue a sinking ship by moving the water to another deck. The left imagine they can bail out the boat by soaking the rich. Simply stopping the flood of deficit spending somehow escapes them.