What is the point, Mr. President?

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

You would have to be sleeping like Rip Van Winkle to have not heard of the "Fiscal Cliff" by now.

What strikes me as odd, however, is the lack of inquisitiveness about the president's insistence on raising tax rates on the rich. It seems to be a given, particularly on the left and in the news media, that this is an unquestionable requirement.

President Obama admitted on the "Tonight Show" on Oct. 24, 2012 that he is not so good at math. Quizzed in regards to helping his daughters with their homework, he said, "Well, the math stuff I was fine with up until about the seventh grade. But Malia is now a freshman in high school and – I'm pretty lost."

However, this does not prevent the president from having advisers about him who can do the math.

And the math says taxing the rich at a higher rate contributes almost nothing to solving our deficit and our debt problem.

So why is the president so stuck on this issue? So stuck, in fact, that he finds eliminating some deductions for the wealthy while keeping tax rates the same is an unacceptable alternative, even if it has the same small positive effect on the nation's coffers.

So this is clearly not about raising money – the amount is too small and he finds alternative ways unacceptable.

It is as if President Obama has a fixation about the wealthy, a fixation that is beyond reasonableness. The issue certainly seems to have no grounding in solving the nation's fiscal problems. Does he just want to create a further divide between the rich and the poor? If so, for what purpose?

Considering these matters, it appears to be a mistake for the opposition to oppose, with any reasoned logic, the president's desire to tax the wealthy at a higher rate. For examining the facts, as I laid out above, clearly indicates that the president is not approaching the issue from any logical, reasoned point of view.

This is much like the irrational complaints about businesses or manufacturers moving overseas. Those who wish to complain about this blame the manufacturers. Manufacturers moving somewhere else is just like water on top of a mountain seeking to be at sea level.

One does not blame the water for flowing from the top of the mountain to the sea – if that is the fault of anything, it is the fault of gravity. Manufacturers, in a like manner, seek to do business in a place where it is easiest to do business. That is not their fault, it is a natural condition reinforced by anyone willing to buy goods made wherever the manufacturers choose to make them.

But back to the president and his fixation on the wealthy. I would suggest this is not some great magnanimous desire for equality for all. It seems to be just raw jealousy (or worse, some nefarious political purpose as yet unrevealed).

The president is certainly comfortable doing things like the rich do – endless golf, fantastic vacations, running around in the most fabulous passenger plane on earth. So, he can't despise what the rich and wealthy do with their money, otherwise he wouldn't do those things himself – they would be abhorrent to him and his wife.

Several, including the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, wish to suggest that President Obama is much like President Lincoln.

I would suggest he, Mr. Emanuel, has the right administration but the wrong gender. Mary Todd Lincoln was a spendthrift nearly driving President Lincoln mad and broke with her endless spending on trinkets and baubles. This is the real commonality of the administrations.

Want to show us your concern for the common citizens, President Obama? Drop the golf and pick up the apparel and demeanor of Mahatma Gandhi. He was a well-educated lawyer, just like you.

Model your political and personal life after Gandhi, and even I will become a believer. Take up the spinning wheel as your avocation, Sir.

Railing about the rich while mimicking their lifestyle has a very hollow ring.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.