The primary campaign strategy of President Obama to secure his re-election was to advocate that wealthy (successful) people should pay higher taxes. I assume that resonated because many assumed that the government having more money would provide them more benefits. That discounts the continuous television ads pointing out that Mr. Romney is a Capitalist, that he did not believe it was the place of government to provide free birth control, and the government should pay for Big Bird episodes. (And, yes, I’m oversimplifying.)

So here we are in the midst of a government-created economic crisis about whether the primary objective of Congress is to raise taxes on those who have been successful, to cut spending, or to do nothing and see what might happen next. My bet, and I make that bet without judging whether it is the best approach, is that our highly paid government officials will do whatever they think is best for their political careers.

Government officials from areas where Democrats dominate will hold out for tax increases on the wealthy and will not risk suggesting reform of entitlement programs that they know are economically unsustainable.  Republicans will feebly demand some sort of spending and entitlement reform. The country will continue to be awarded with a lack of leadership from the President and Congressional leaders. I predict President Obama will continue to campaign that everything is the fault of Republican leaders going back to George W. Bush. I also predict that he will be heartily awarded with applause for that meaningless rhetoric.

My fear is that we will steadily march toward being a marginalized economic power that continues to accumulate debt and unsustainable but politically powerful entitlement promises. Those daunting problems won’t be confronted because elected officials fear they might not be re-elected if they suggest actual solutions. We have empowered a President by re-election because he has suggested the only solution needed is to take more from successful people who make high salaries.

The New York Times had a recent article that the tax increase on the “wealthy” proposed by Mr. Obama on those earning above $250,000/year will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, pay for less than ten percent of the estimated budget deficits. My favorite part of the article was that to “…raise taxes talk was a crowd-pleasing distraction from the need for painful spending cuts.”

It is true that lower-income households saved less in from the “Bush tax cuts.” You didn’t get any kind of tax break if you didn’t have to pay anything previous to the legislation. However, “More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.”

It is interesting to consider what tax rates are fair for the “wealthy.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an Executive Order (9250) that the marginal tax rate for higher income earners of 91 percent was not enough, and that the tax rate should be 100 percent for those earning more than $25,000 (about $350,000 in today’s inflated dollars). I wonder whether Mr. Obama would be willing to endorse that those making over $350, ooo should be taxed at 100%”. I guessing that would be a bad idea when there are countries willing to give business people shelter if they are willing to bring the jobs created by their businesses.

You probably won’t see on the evening news that, according to the Heritage Organization, the top one percent of earners pay a larger share of taxes (22.3 percent) than the share of income it earns (13.3 percent.) “The bottom 40 percent earned 14.9 percent of income but paid 4.1 percent of federal taxes.”  I know that doesn’t reflect the “Warren Buffet” argument, because those percentages don’t support Mr. Obama’s position.

The frightening part of this post is that Thomas Jefferson foresaw the problem. He said, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”