It’s been an interesting week so far as reaction to the whole Joe The Plumber escapade has heightened people’s awareness of Barack Obama’s agenda.

For the sake of full disclosure, and ensuring people don’t accuse me of taking his words out of context, you can see the full transcript of the conversation between Obama and Joe here. I’m going to focus on one sentence that Obama said:

I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

One can argue a hundred different opinions on this topic, and there’s been a lot of comments around how this is a Socialist agenda (and many consider this to be pretty obvious). However, the new argument from the Left is that there’s nothing new here that make Obama’s plans more Socialist than we are today. Or more Socialist than we have been for nearly 100 years. I received an email

On Sunday I shared some initial thoughts about the Fed take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you read it, you know I’m not exactly happy about the outcome.  My friend Bithead shared some great thoughts Monday, and I don’t disagree that something needed to be done.   He and I both agree [...]

Today US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans for the new Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to take Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into conservatorship.   The power to do this was provided in HR 3221 which was passed in July.
The move includes replacement of the CEO of both organizations, and an infusion of about $200 [...]

Legislative Leaders in Iowa are continuing to talk about a special session of the General Assembly, which makes sense. The Governor is doing a good job of expressing the need to prioritize working on the current relief effort AND establishing a solid assessment of the costs before holding a session.
The bad news is, the [...]

So, there’s this state that thinks foundations with $250 million in assets or more should to provide reports on the gender orientation and ethnicity of their boards and staffs, and the boards and staffs of the charities they support.  And to what extent they are actually run by minorities, or support them.
I’ll give you one [...]

You may recall a few months ago I mentioned I had started reading The FairTax Book. It only took about 5 or 6 hours of reading time, but it kept bouncing around in priority, and I just finished a couple of days ago.
It is really tough to explain the whole idea in a few [...]

Thankfully, the voters of Polk County in Iowa have managed to do better than the legislators in the Iowa General Assembly. While the state is busy raising as many of our taxes as they could get away with, the voters, the people that gave them the power (at least in Polk County) rejected the [...]

I’ve been subscribing to Fortune magazine for about 15 years now, and in the last couple of years I’ve given serious thought to letting my subscription go for something more substantive and/or right-leaning, as I’ve watched the editorial staff at Fortune take their publication further and further left.  And then, just when I begin to [...]

Last week I commented on the unspoken (at least by anyone who wants to be President) state of Medicare.  Now it appears that Social Security is a mess too.  (I know, big surprise!)  In the March 31, 2008 edition of Fortune, Allan Sloan reports that in about 10 years, Social Security will start spending more [...]

Ah, my first contribution to the Conservative Reader.  I hope my effort is worthy of this site.  I hope I can remember my training from last night.  I hope I don’t come off sounding like a fool, or worse yet, like a pompas ass, but then again, how would anyone know the difference.
In the March [...]