Exactly what basic training one receives in economics at Harvard's Law School, or as a community organizer in Chicago is not entirely clear, but it is fundamentally flawed.  A basic economics lesson might be learned from those countries in Africa in which wealth envy has resulted in decimating the only productive parts of each country.  Driving farmers off their lands produces its own poetic justice: starvation, poverty and chaos.   The ensuing frustration unleashes genocide, massive migration, and a dead economy.  If the African model is to be instituted here, it appears that much of the early groundwork is already being prepared.  Those with wealth in America are being driven into hiding.

          Obama's 2010 budget entitled  A New Era of Responsibility is his master plan for restoring the American dream.  The following excerpts capture Obama's economic philosophy.  His statements appear in the inserted boxes with page references.

The time has come to usher in a new era—a new era of responsibility in which we act not only to save and create new jobs, but also to lay a new foundation of growth upon which we can renew the promise of America.  (page 1)

            While this statement on the surface inspires confidence, the fundamental belief that America needs a new foundation of growth, that the old foundation is defective, is a frightening opening remark.  Some of this new foundation is captured in the following belief:

The past eight years have discredited once and for all the philosophy of trickle-down economics—that tax breaks, income gains, and wealth creation among the wealthy eventually will work their way down to the middle class. In its place, we need economic opportunity to trickle up. (page 17)

          An economic belief that wealth trickles up, as from the ownership of land, sounds more like wealth envy, African style.   In this system, owners are interchangeable parts to be determined by the posse in power at the time.  When the powers can suspend ownership, cancel contracts, and ignore trade agreements, all freedoms of an individual are for sale.  This is the despotic disposition of the powers in Washington today.  

          While Obama's budget glosses over any distinction between income and wealth, he minces no words about the once and for all failure of trickle down economics.  While trickling up or down is a clever analogy from the physical sciences, an economy doesn't trickle, it works.  Those who work profit from their work.  An economy is the composite of all those who work to produce a living. 

          Those who do not work do not profit from the economic system, except through the generosity of those who do.  This is Basic Economics 101, and reveals the fundamental difference between the American dream and the new foundation Obama seems intent upon building. 

          Accepting the central position of work in an economy, the next question which must be addressed is what, exactly, is supposed to trickle up from the bottom.  There is no wealth at the bottom.  There is no work at the bottom.  There is only welfare and despair as free gifts in an economy of human entitlements.  Those who work are expected to share their return equally with those who do not work, and the government is the middle man, the mechanism through which this fairness works.  The key word here is equally. 

          This is precisely the economic system instituted in Russia with the guidance of Marxist philosophy.  Their economy, run by the government, failed after many decades.  Their former economy was filled with shortages of essentials, limitations on all services, and equality for all who are not an integral part of the ruling class.  The ruling class, of course, consisted of 2-5% of the population, and the rules they instituted did not apply to them, only their subjects, often referred to in the black community as slaves.  They cleverly referred to the slaves as the peoples' party.  Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters have already assumed their roles as commissars of this new ruling class. 

          Following Russia's economic collapse their new foundation, based upon a system of incentives through working to get ahead, renewed Russia's economy over the past two decades.  Wealth through working in Russia was a revolution for the man on the street, and equality regardless of effort was cast aside.   While Russia may be slipping back into despotism with Putin's vital assistance, the mass disappearances, killings, and imprisonments of those who disagree have been minimized during the past two decades.   

          Obama's wealth envy demonizes work, and substitutes entitlement in its place, as though money, like manna, grows on trees.  His new foundation, change he believes in, is anchored in the following fundamental belief:

For the better part of three decades, a disproportionate share of the Nation’s wealth has been accumulated by the very wealthy. Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries—and birthing new ones—has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality. yet, instead of using the tax code to lessen these increasing wage disparities, changes in the tax code over the past eight years exacerbated them. (page 9)

        If Obama were an ardent reader of the Wall Street Journal, he would know that based upon income alone, the highest 20% of income earners paid 65% of all income taxes, the same amount as the other four income groups combined.  This was in 2003.  Throughout the Bush years, their contribution through taxes increased, rather than decreased as a portion of total income taxes.  Obama is simply barking up the wrong tree by looking at income to support his wealth redistribution scheme.  Increasing annual wage disparities are the mark of wealth, the only pot of gold available to invest in America.   Wealth, as in Africa, is not a demon to be slayed.