President Obama’s third State of the Union address was mostly just a regurgitation of the failed policies of the last three years. Today, the Republican National Committee put out a great video that really drives that point home:
There were no surprises in last night’s speech. However, we now know for sure that as we head into the general election, the president will fully embrace the divisive class warfare rhetoric that has become a staple of his talking points over the last couple of years.
“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” he said Tuesday night, “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.”
There is little argument that President Obama is the greatest food stamp president we’ve ever seen. Food-stamp use has increased 46% since December 2008. Total spending on the program has more than doubled during the Obama presidency to an all-time high of $75.3 billion.
But he’s hardly the first U.S. elected official to advocate for an aggressive shift away from free-markets in favor of more government intervention and wealth redistribution.
Meet Huey Long. Long was elected governor of Louisiana in the late 1920s and went on to be a U.S. Senator in the ’30s. He created the “Share Our Wealth” program in 1934 with the motto “Every Man a King.” He proposed large-scale wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals.
Here’s long in 1934:
I think it is important for us to put president Obama’s class warfare strategy in historical perspective. Americans have decided time and time again that they want a nation of free people and free markets while rejecting the creeping growth of the entitlement state.
We have to keep putting that decision before the American people. Because if history tells us anything, free-markets win.
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