No More Pie?

I like pie. Lemon meringue is my favorite in the summer, but I can go for key lime anytime.

Why talk about pie? Barack Obama is eyeing it.

My piece of the pie doesn't deprive someone else. Life is not a zero sum game. My success is not someone else's failure. My wanting to learn more does not mean someone else learns less. And if I have the chance to earn more it doesn't necessarily mean someone else makes less.

We are what we make of ourselves. Our biggest asset is ourselves. It's called human capital. And in a healthy economy, the pie keeps getting bigger as the economy grows.

I remember on high school curriculum night, freshman year for one of my kids, the world history teacher was making a pitch that custodians should be paid as much as teachers (You may well wonder what this had to do with world history--this kind of thing went on all the time--it was union agitation writ large at an upscale liberal school. Here's another kind of teacher.) So I bit my tongue then, but I'm blogging this now. I wanted to ask, well then, why should any kid, including mine, listen to you? Why should they go on to college, or earn a further degree? What's the incentive, aside from personal satisfaction?

And I could have gone on to ask, what did you learn, with all your further schooling, that you talk like this now? Perhaps the custodian did have more wisdom. Perhaps he or she should have been paid as much as this teacher.

But for most of us our effort pays off. Let me ask you this--what do you think of a presidential candidate who would penalize people trying to earn a little more? Why should a family that works a little harder have to pay a bigger percentage of their income? Especially as families are supporting the children they're raising for our future.

Why has Barack Obama declared war on highly educated working women? NY Sun:

But on this one, all the indignant bluster mustered by Messrs. Furman and Goolsbee can't hide the fact that a rise to 43.6% from 39.6% would be a 24.6% increase in the federal marginal income tax rate. And, as we predicted last week, the consequence is that a lot of highly educated working women, faced with the prospect of turning over 54% of their income to the government (not to mention the cost of child care), will just stay home.

For Messrs. Furman and Goolsbee to counter this criticism with the news that Mr. Obama favors an increase in the minimum wage is just insulting. Most of the women who are going to be paying Mr. Obama's 54% nominal marginal income tax rate are not minimum wage earners. They are doctors and lawyers and writers and bankers and accountants and teachers and small businesswomen.

Even formerly Marxist countries which robbed individuals, taking from each according to his abilities and giving back a miserly each according to his needs, now have largely adopted a flat tax. They take the same percentage of everyone's paycheck, no matter the income. No more class warfare. No more demonizing the "other" to score political points. No more public policy which shrinks our economy and impoverishes us all.

How come Barack Obama doesn't get it where working women are concerned?

It's no wonder some prominent Hillraisers are still mad. (How come he is so arrogant?) (Mama would be so ashamed.) HT riverdaughter.

Still feel like a piece of pie?

--crossposted at BlogHer