The Tax Shift

[smoothmoniker]

You don't see any hypocrisy in simultaneously stating that the wealthy (which by your own definition includes yourself) have an obligation to redistribute a portion of their wealth to the poor, and then utterly failing to do so yourself?

10% of his income, a modest $25,000 a year, would have been enough to make significant change in the lives of a many people. He could have, personally, by himself, bought health insurance for 5 families - not the cheap stuff either, the really good coverage. He could afford it - why didn't he do it?

I think there are only three explanations. I'm open to other possible explanations, if someone would like to suggest one:

1. Obama is interested in poverty as a issue, not actual poverty experienced by actual people.

2. Obama isn't interested in direct, personal solutions to poverty, the kind that involve people being compassionate, he is only interested in solutions that require increasing the power and presence of the federal government.

3. Obama didn't think of himself as "rich", and therefore it shouldn't be his responsibility to shoulder the burden of helping others. Being compassionate and giving, being charitable toward those who are in need, that is the noblesse oblige, but certainly not something the rest of us should feel constrained by.

I deeply distrust any person who claims poverty as an issue, and fails to do anything personally to alleviate its effects.