This.

Obama overstated his case when he said "you didn't build that."

His point is pretty clear. But it doesn't necessarily justify higher tax rates for the highest income earners when they already pay much more than rest of the population in absolute terms. (top 5% accounts for 55+%, top 1% accounts for 35~40%, 0.1% for 15~20% of federal income taxes since 2000)

cite

Obama is a socialist. He's basically screaming it from a rooftop with this speech.

It's clear he's saying that individuals who have succeeded in life more than others "owe" their success to the government.

Would you say Steve Jobs didn't build Apple? That Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft? That they didn't earn the billions of dollars they have because their are just as many "hard working" and "smart" Americans out there.

What Obama shows ignorance of is that some skills, talents, and products are more valuable than others. That capitalism and entrepreneurship rewards most, those who create the most wealth.

Dems want the rich to pay more. Doesn't matter what they pay now. It's not enough. It'll never be enough. The fact that they are still rich is enough of a reason to tax them more.

If they had the chance, Obama and the Dems would choose to see the poor get poorer if it meant that incomes were more "equal" in our society. Disgusting.

Obviously someone does not know the difference between Keynesian economics and Socialism.

It sounds just as bad to me in context. Posters are saying he clearly didn't mean to say it. How can they be so sure? Everything else he said goes right in line.

Cliffnotes: people need to cooperate to maximize their potential, so we're going to force you to cooperate with US. Also, rich people like bankers didn't make all that money by themselves, the government gave a lot of it to them (shoutout to the cooperators for making that possible); meanwhile other hardworking cooperators are ignored by government bailouts.

1. Capital gains taxed like income over some threshold, say $1m.
2. Capital gains income is calculated relative to inflation (say, year over year change in CPI but you could use something esle too as long as it's clearly consistently defined.

Most economists these days aren't Keynesians anyways. If Obama has advisors that are that's pretty bad imo.

dude, you are all socialists, and have been that way since the conclusion of WW2. All those factories that were expanded or built from scratch were given to industry (for the social good). Eisenhower decided interstates were a good idea in a fascist country, so he had them criss cross the land (for the social good). All the technology that was created to catch up to the Russian space program was deemed to be in the good of the nation (more socialism) in turn led to the present day tech boom.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates benefited greatly from intellectual property laws and government investment in the early internet (and many many other things).

let's see how the self-labeled conservatives hand-wave this away.

It's funny, Obama's statement is so bad... they won't even defend it. "He didn't mean to say it."

I'm the delusional one with half a brain but I can read. Obama said it. Whether you want to acknowledge that fact or not is your problem.

people say lots of things 13th, most people in america can read, don't be too proud of that fact.

less people can understand what is meant by what they read.

You do have a profile pic of a guy who signed his name into racist newsletters, and are currently trying to make a big deal of a mistake in speech by Obama..

omg pwned.