Joe the Plumber and the New Deal

http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

"Joe the plumber" has entered campaign lore and for good reason. His question to Obama goes at the heart of the fork in the road for America: A 'share the wealth' socialist future of redistribution, or a free enterprise America where those who work hard get to live the American dream. What we can learn from this case is that the Obama campaign plays dirty. Obama didn't really want that debate so he works to suppress the story by getting his goons to shut the plumber up, and then he mocks the plumber to his cheering fans.

What Obama will deliver, if he could, is a New Deal like the Old Deal of FDR's time. And that deal is a bad deal for small business owners and anyone who wants to partake in the free enterprise system. Consider The Odd Case of Jacob Maged-the tailor who charged too little:

A “chiseler” was a character who violated the spirit of the Blue Eagle and the terms of the law when he charged a price below the level specified by the code in his industry. And such a villain, apparently, was Jacob Maged in Jersey City. The hapless Maged, aged forty-nine, was an immigrant who ran his own tailor shop. He had been warned once by inspectors from the government, but the second, in April 1934, the authorities decided to make an example of him. Maged was prosecuted and sent to jail for three months, leaving a wife and four daughters to struggle with the business and pay his $100 fine. And his crime? Knowingly, deliberately, Maged had charged 35 cents to press a suit for a customer, even though the code of the NRA had pegged the price at 40 cents. . . . Jacob Maged could become a criminal only under a rare set of laws, in which people in the business of dry cleaning could use the powers of law to impose penalties on their own competitors who dared to lower their prices.

This tailor was a victim of New Deal socialism. Today's business owners will become victim's of Obama's economic plans: His mandates and over-regulation on health insurance will force businesses to add costs or get jailed; his tax increases will reduce the incentive on business and kill jobs and production; his Government spending plans will crowd out private investment.
Obama's new New Deal is a very Bad Deal.