Wednesday, November 23, 2011

It's Time to Talk Turkey About Income Inequality

390 years after the first symbol of gratitude created by Europeans on this continent, Americans are locked in a bitter conflict of ingratitude. The tug-of-war over the turkey wishbone is now a polarizing class struggle.

The dividing line is the loaded phrase “income inequality.” It’s all about who eats and who pays.

On one level, income inequality is real, and growing. Yet as a bedrock and urgent political issue, it’s pure hokum, cooked up in the socialist faculty lounges and the back rooms where the government unions pull the strings of puppet pols. The aim is to hijack emotions and grow the government pie so favored voters get a bigger slice.

It has surprisingly wide appeal. People from the vagabonds playing drums in Zuccotti Park to the billionaire mayor of New York who rousted them, Michael Bloomberg, say income inequality is a big problem....

Having given up on the meaning of America, which is about expanding opportunity and liberty for everyone, income equalizers are pitting Americans against each other in a fight certain to make losers of us all.