Fight for income equality has created more income inequality

Back in the 1960s President Johnson waged a war on poverty.  In the end, more people are in poverty today than when the war was started.  A common mantra of liberals like Obama is to fight for income equality, although during his reign as President income inequality has gotten worse, not better.

Thomas Sowell over at National Review has a nice column on this topic.  He said:

This is not as surprising as some might think. When you make it unnecessary for many people to work, fewer people work. Unprecedented numbers of Americans are on the food-stamp program. Unprecedented numbers are also living off government “disability” payments.

There is a sweeping array of other government subsidies, whether in money or in kind, that together allow many people to receive greater benefits than they could earn by working at low-skilled jobs. Is it surprising that the labor-force participation rate is lower than it has been in decades?

In short, when people don’t have to earn incomes, they are less likely to earn incomes — or, at least, to earn incomes in legal and visible ways that could threaten their government benefits.

I hear Obama on TV bashing rich people all the time, claiming that they are "greedy" and that they got their money by "taking advantage of the poor and working class," and that they need to be "taxed more" in order to help the poor and needy."

The problem with such beliefs is that the rich are the very people who create the jobs.  Despite the fact they are considered "rich" by the President does not mean they have liquid assets sitting around ready to be spent.

Rich people only have so much money that they would otherwise use to give to charities and taxes or invest to create jobs.  If the government takes most of it in the form of taxes so the government can decide how it is spent, that leaves little money left for job creation.

This is a part of economics 101 that people like Obama seem to have trouble realizing.  When you take from the rich and give it to the poor, basically you are making a bunch of poor people.  Now, if making everyone poor is your way of creating "equal pay" for everyone, then you are accomplishing your goal.