Add to the corpus of “spread the wealth” and “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money” a new Obama proclamation from today’s news conference, about the president’s desire to pay higher taxes because of “hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that I don’t need.”
That’s yet another small peep into an alternate universe in which, to paraphrase Steven Chu, Americans need guidance on how to spend their money, and need government to adjudicate what is fair compensation — sort of taking from those who are arbitrarily paid too much and don’t “need” “hundreds of thousands of dollars in income” to give to those who deserve it.
No need to mention that for the Washington technocracy, where most expenses are picked up by the taxpayers (and where taxes are not always paid . . .), income apparently is not so important. When Obama retires, and must pay for his own private jet travel, he may well think that he does not have hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that he doesn’t need.