By Bill O'Reilly
The President's comments last week about success in America are very important because they show how he really feels about capitalism. If you listen to the anti-Obama forces on talk radio and cable TV, you will hear over and over again that the President is a socialist or a communist.
"Talking Points" has never bought that. It is far too simplistic. Instead, the President is a reluctant capitalist, a man who believes our economic system is stacked against the poor and working class and always has been. Like many liberal people, the President believes American capitalism is often predatory, rewarding the wealthy and exploiting the workers.
So what the President wants to do is restrain capitalism through taxation. If you score big, he wants a big piece of the action. So he can give what you get to other people. Also Mr. Obama wants to regulate how commerce is done in the USA.
Now, I see no evidence that the President wants to seize private property, which is what communists do. Also the feds are not running the Fox News Channel as they would be in a socialistic system, like the one Hugo Chavez has imposed in Venezuela.
Now, I could be wrong about this, but I think Mr. Obama allows historical grievances, things like slavery, bad treatment for native Americans, U.S. exploitation of third world countries to shape his economic thinking. Rather than seeing the USA as basically noble, he gives the bad things about America far too much weight, leading to his desire to redistribute wealth, there by correcting historical grievance. All of this is pretty philosophical, but it directly affects you.
The facts are these... The President's big spending policies have not helped the economy. Mr. Obama's liberal economic vision has run up enormous debt and that threatens everybody single one of us. Yet the President doesn't seem very concerned about that. His focus continues to be to take from those have and spread the money around.
In a brand-new Fox News poll, Americans were asked, has the Obama administration made the economy better or worse? 37 percent say better; 49 percent worse; 10 percent believe the President's policies have made no difference.
However, in the same poll, Americans support a tax increase on the wealthy by a 52-42 margin. So to some extent, the President's class warfare posture has worked.
In order to defeat the President, Mitt Romney will have to convince you, the American public, that we will all be much better under robust capitalism. That if Mr. Obama is voted out, the private marketplace will rebound, creating decent paying jobs. The President will counter with the status quo, which of course is shaky.
Summing up Mr. Obama is not a socialist. He's not a communist. He's a social justice anti-capitalist. And that's what he is.
And that's "The Memo."
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