Sowell on 'Socialism for the Rich' & Getting Better Politicians in Washington...

Dr. Sowell:

Although socialism has long claimed to be for the poor, it has probably done more damage, on net balance, to the poor than to the rich. After all, the rich have enough money to leave the country if they think the socialists are going to do them any serious harm.

Some of our own rich have already had their money leave the country, to be sheltered from the higher taxes that limousine liberals say we should all pay. Meanwhile, the liberal media give them kudos for their selfless advocacy of higher taxes on higher income people, forgetting that these are not taxes on wealth.

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Most of the people in
the upper income brackets
are not rich and do not
have wealth sheltered offshore.

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Most of the people in the upper income brackets are not rich and do not have wealth sheltered offshore. They are typically working people who have finally reached their peak earning years after many years of far more modest incomes - and now see much of what they have worked for siphoned off by politicians, to the accompaniment of lofty rhetoric. ...

And here's an older column that I think deserves another read given the news of the day... "Americans Deserve Better Politicians in Washington":

... There is no point complaining about the ineptness, deception or corruption of government while refusing to do anything to change the incentives and constraints which lead to ineptness, deception and corruption.

You are not going to get the most highly skilled or intelligent people in the country, people with real-world experience, while offering them one-tenth or less of what such people can earn in the private sector.

A professor of economics at a leading university earns more than a member of Congress or a justice of the Supreme Court - and a surgeon earns at least twice as much as an economics professor, though still only about a tenth of what a successful corporate executive can make.

How many people in the top layer of their respective professions are going to sacrifice the future of their families - the ability to give their children the best education, the ability to have something to fall back on in case of illness or tragedy, the ability to retire in comfort and with peace of mind - in order to go into politics? ...

He gets into this more in subsequent columns on political corruption... Parts I, II and III.

Read Sowell every week... at Human Events or TownHall. You'll be better for it.