It's About Wealth Distribution, Stupid

Say what you will about Barack Obama, but the guy makes you think. That is, if you're capable of and willing to do so.

New York Times columnist David Brooks certainly is a thinker, and his much discussed column this week about the new president ruffling his moderate feathers because of a gadzillion dollar budget package and shoot-the-moon stimulus, revitalization and reform programs has provoked a range of responses that capture the conflict thatI feel: Having suffered through eight years of a spendthrift, abusive and deeply corrupt presidential administration, I am not quite ready to give the new guy carte blanche but know that there is no time to waste.

Much of the reaction to Brooks has been label-centric; that is, whether Obama is a leftist or a centrist or a . . . you know, the s-word.

I won't go there because at the end of the day you end up focusing more on the bun than the burger. Besides which, for me the meat of the matter is that income distribution is wildly out of wack in this country, affecting everything from access to health care to taxes, that reality was going to sink in sooner or later, and until it is addressed our future and real prosperity, not just high times for the rich, is bleak indeed.

At the root of the ongoing economic collapse is that those rich folks have gotten richer and the middle class has suffered mightily because of an addiction to quick profits helpfully greased by an orgy of government deregulation during the Clinton and Bush years. This seems so obvious that it is amazing that only two of the 20 or so blogger/commentators whom I read that commented on Brooks mentioned it.

Meanwhile, Brooks himself disingenuously notes that "the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide" without acknowledging that this is the very thing that is killing the economy.

The reality is that just by letting the draconian Bush tax cuts expire and adopting Obama's plan, the top tax rate will go up a measly 3 percent. This means that government will get $7,500 more from everyone making over $500,000 a year, or approximately one-tenth of the cost of a new BMW 7-series luxocruiser, while this "sacrifice" hopefully will bring the goal of a more equitable health-care system a little closer. Please.

It may well be that even Brooks' keen mind is overwhelmed by everything the new administration is trying to do, while I disagree with commentators who claim that he -- like the despicable Rush Limbaugh -- wants Obama to fail.

Brooks does helpfully add that "The only thing more scary than Obama's experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it."

Most people seem to understand this, have hunkered down for the long haul and are not buying Republican drivel, be it from Limbaugh or anyone else. This drivel includes the whopper that hidden in the stimulus bill are a billion big ones for a magnetic-levitation "Sin Express" train from Disneyland to Las Vegas.

In fact, one new poll shows Obama's favorability ratings have reached a new high while the Republicans' have hit a new low.

Americans know that Obama is not Napoleon and this is not the French Revolution, but do understand that nothing short of visionary leadership and a policy revolution will see their country through.

Top image: "Liberty Leading the People" by Eugene Delacroix