Krauthammer Explains the Occupation

Dr Charles Krauthammer, my favourite popular psychiatrist and political pundit, takes on the hordes that constitute the Occupation, now that they’ve studied the dry-run in Greece and the UK.  He lays the clarion call for these Vandals squarely on the doorstep of Obama and the Democrats, and takes to task the pathetic claims that soaking the rich will somehow solve the abysmal debt crisis.

In Obama’s telling, it’s the refusal of the rich to “pay their fair share” that jeopardizes Medicare. If millionaires don’t pony up, schools will crumble.  Oil-drilling tax breaks are costing teachers their jobs.  Corporate loopholes will gut medical research.

It’s crude.  It’s Manichaean.  And the Left loves it.  As a matter of math and logic, however, it’s ridiculous.  Obama’s most coveted tax hike – an extra 3 to 4.6 percent for millionaires and billionaires (weirdly defined as individuals making over $200,000) – would have reduced last year’s deficit from $1.29 trillion to $1.21 trillion.  Nearly a rounding error.  The oil-drilling breaks cover less than half a day’s federal spending.  You could collect Obama’s favorite tax loophole – depreciation for corporate jets – for 100 years and it wouldn’t cover one month of Medicare, whose insolvency is a function of increased longevity, expensive new technology, and wasteful defensive medicine caused by an insane malpractice system.

He lists other examples, such as the Democrat attempt to pass a bill which would start a trade war with China, or Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) – the one who compared our military at Guantánamo to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings” – calling for a run on Bank of America, “a major (and troubled) bank – after two presidents and two Congresses sank billions of taxpayer dollars to save failing banks.”   He then returns to

These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching – to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause.

Except that the real Tea Party actually had a program – less government, less regulation, less taxation, less debt.  What’s the Occupy Wall Street program?  Eat the rich.

And then what?  Haven’t gotten that far.

No postprandial plans.  But no matter.  After all, this is not about programs or policies.  This is about scapegoating, a failed administration trying to save itself by blaming our troubles – and its failures – on class enemies, turning general discontent into rage against a malign few.

Excellent, as always.  Read the whole thing.

(H/T to Joe Dryden)