Neal Boortz
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2002

Throughout my 33 years of talk radio I have been consistently hesitant to call people or ideas "communist" unless, of course, the people or ideas had already identified themselves as such.

I adopted this tactic because I feared being lumped into that group of irrational and ignorant blowhards who scream "communism" when the local postal authorities tell them they can't use their mailbox as a bun warmer.

Just because I've refrained from using the word doesn't mean the folks with communist ideas and principles aren't out there threatening our freedoms.

Those of you who have made any study of Karl Marx and his little pet political project will recognize his belief in "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

Though there is good evidence that Marx actually lifted this little ditty from the Torah, it has become recognized as perhaps the pre-eminent motto of Communism.

I bring this up today because it is becoming increasingly clear that the international Communist movement needs to get one of its lawyer pals to hurry out there and trademark its precious motto.

If it doesn't act fast, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is going to become the de facto motto of the Democratic Party – quickly becoming known as the Social Democratic Party.

First let's deal with this "from each according to their ability ..." part.

If you know the current reality of our so-called "progressive" income tax, you will know that the income tax burden has been shifted almost entirely onto higher income earners.

You have to make around $280,000 to be in the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States. If you are in this top 1 percent, you and your other "1 percenters" are earning between 18 and 19 percent of all personal income, but you are paying almost 39 percent of all personal income taxes!

Similar disparities exist for the top 5 percent, the top 25 percent … even the top 50 percent. Time after time I have heard leftist (socialist) politicians excuse and even praise this disparity on the sole basis that "these people are earning a lot of money and they can afford to pay more."

So – there you are. That is the first part of the Communist motto: "From each according to their ability. …"

Now, what about the "… to each according to their needs" part?

Unless you've been locked in a cave or vacationing in Kabul for the past 30 years, you will readily note that politicians make a regular habit of excusing their various vote-buying programs based on the "need" of those receiving your tax dollars.

For the latest example we need only listen to the words of failed Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.

Gore was speaking to Tennessee Democrats in Nashville Saturday. It was the usual leftist Democratic nonsense. Clinton did everything right, Bush is doing everything wrong.

Gore even blamed the current recession on Bush, a rather neat trick considering the fact that the recession began under Clinton-Gore.

But ... here's your Marx Moment. Gore said,

"We need a government that lives within its means, invests in the American people and supports tax cuts for the people who need tax cuts."

First of all … Gore isn't really talking about tax "cuts" here. He's talking about transfer payments – money being transferred from those who earned it to those who did not.

Only in America, and then only with the eager help of the leftist media, could the seizure of money from A for payment to B be called a "tax cut" when, in fact, B had no tax liability to begin with!

Having established, then, that what Gore is really talking about is simply income redistribution, we get to the magic words, "tax cuts (the seizure of property) for the people who need tax cuts (the redistribution of property)."

In other words, "to each according to their need."

It's so obvious, folks. The Democrats have appropriated the internationally recognized motto of Communism for their own use.

The wordier version would be "We take the tax money from the people who have the ability to pay and give that money to the people who need it."

The most politically honest version would be "We take the tax money from the people who have the ability to pay, and who are the least likely to vote for us, and give it to the people who aren't bright enough to earn that kind of money on their own, and who are the most likely to vote for us."

Remember – "He who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul."

Democrats Go Full Bore – Tie Bush to Enron

Election years make for desperate politics. Democrats are beside themselves. Here they are in an off-year election cycle that they fully expected would return them to dominance in Washington, and they're facing a president with the highest sustained approval rates of any president since they started keeping records.

By now you've heard of the Carville memo. The Democrats' chief attack snake told his pals in no uncertain terms that they had to find a way to tie Bush and the Republicans to Enron if there is going to be any chance at all of making headway in these elections.

Remember Carville's words? "The more people hear, the more corrosive it [Enron] becomes."

Carville's memo came to light at the end of last week. This week the Democrats came out swinging. The chief attack dog was the doddering wizened senator from South Carolina, Ernest Hollings. Hollings is calling for a special prosecutor to look into the actions of the Bush White House. Here are his words:

"There's a culture of government corruption. I've never seen a better example of cash-and-carry government than this Bush administration and Enron."

"Cash-and-carry government"? Can anyone in my vast listening audience name one single favor that was granted to Enron as a result of campaign donations received by Bush or administration officials?

Just what did Enron get? They're bankrupt, aren't they? As hard as people – including the media – have looked, nobody has come up with one single quid pro quo. Not one favor for Enron.

So, did Fritz Hollings just get this thing wrong? Does he ever get things wrong? Well, it would seem so. He screwed up at least three things in his rant yesterday. Here are three things Hollings got wrong in his discussions about the Bush administration and Enron.

• Mitch Daniels, Bush's budget director, had been an Enron adviser.
  
• Harvey Dent, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, had been on Enron's payroll.
  
• Paul O'Neill, Bush's secretary of the treasury, had been paid by Enron.

If someone in the Bush administration did favors for Enron in exchange for campaign contributions or other favors … get them. Prosecute them. That's not the way business should be done.

In the absence of some evidence of wrongdoing, the media should identify the Democrat tactics for what they are – the modern-day equivalent of the old Nazi big lie technique.

Healthy, Mentally Stable Kids From Two-Parent Households Need Not Apply???

Have you heard about the new admission standards for the University of California? Well ... for starters, they want to drop the SAT admission and add other factors for university admission. One of the factors? If you come from a single-parent household, you get extra credit.

In other words, being raised in a traditional two-parent family (that would mean a mother who is a female and a father who is a male who is actually married to the mother) will mean that you are at a disadvantage when you apply for college admission.

The solution? Maybe Mom and Dad ought to get a quickie divorce just before you apply to college.

Just When You Think Bush Is a Democrat, He Pulls a Republican Move

For the first time ever, the Bush administration's new budget will tie program performance to program funding. Yes, you read that right. It's an incredible concept, usually restricted to private businesses that have to worry about things like "the bottom line."

Here's how it works. The various government programs are reviewed, and if it's decided they are not efficient or are redundant, they will get less funding (why not NO funding?).

If a program seems to be accomplishing what it's supposed to do, it will get more funding. Wow! Rewarding performance and punishing non-performance ... who would have thought of such a thing?

Yeah, that's right – the private sector has been working that way for centuries.

Tom Daschle has been throwing around the term "fiscally responsible" lately. Well, this idea is a helluva lot more fiscally responsible than ANYTHING he's ever even thought of, so look for the Dems to whine like crazy.

Keep it up, Dubya ... you're lifting my hopes!

President Hillary? Americans Say No

Marist College Polling Institute conducted a poll of over 1,000 Americans to see how they felt about the Hildebeast making a run for the White House.

The answer? Not just "no" but "HELL, no." Sixty-five percent said she shouldn't run in 2004 – or ever. Twenty-seven percent said she should go for it, while 8 percent were undecided.

Among Democrats, 48 percent said nay, compared to 44 percent yea. Republicans were 83-14 against, and Independents went 65-24 against.

Now, politically speaking, it's eons until 2004, but it doesn't look good for Hitlary ... and I promise to do my part to keep it that way.

I truly believe that she is the most dangerous politician on the national stage today. She has an insatiable appetite for political power – and I don't think anything less than a presidential campaign will satisfy her.

Wouldn't You Know It ... I Was Born 30 Years Too Late!

Playboy magazine (or to be specific, Playboy.com) conducted a "College Sex Survey." The results show that "the times, they are a-changin'." More than 11,000 students answered their questionnaire, and the results show that:

"... women lose their virginity faster, have more one-night stands and generally possess a more liberal attitude toward sex than guys. Men, on the other hand, further cloud the gender roles: They're looking for love, not lovin', more often than the fair gender. They're less likely to cheat, have fewer partners and are more than twice as likely to be virgins."

Well, it took a whole generation to do it, but I guess the NOW crowd has finally succeeded in their goal. Men are no longer pigs ... women are. Oh, to be a 20-something male back at Texas A&M!

Now We Learn of a New 'Right' in America – the 'Right' to Lightheartedness

A computer geek in his mid-30s was applying for a tech job in Northern Virginia back in November. He made it past the first cut. He went in for the second interview and passed on to the next round. By this time he "was beginning to get somewhat confident." It was down to him and two others.

When he went in for the third round, he was asked to fill out some forms. By this time, he felt he knew the human resources people fairly well, and when he got to the part asking "Sex," he answered "Yes." He didn't get the job and believes it was his flippant answer that took him out of the running.

Now – guess what. Yup, you got it. He's considering a lawsuit. His grounds: discrimination against lightheartedness. Is there really a lawyer who will take this case? Bill Clinton, maybe? No, he's lost his license. F. Lee Bailey? No, he's lost his. Well, there's always Johnnie Cochran.

More Proof That Dot Coms Are 'Not' Coms Today

A Libertarian's definition of luck is opportunity met with preparation. During the Internet frenzy of the late 90s, Timothy Lee was sitting on a gold mine. He registered the name "Cool.com" for free in the early days. At one point, he turned down an offer for $8 million plus $30 million in stock for the name.

Today he still owns it, but it seems to be worth what he paid for it. With the success of such unlikely names as Yahoo.com, Google.com and Amazon.com, logical domain names just don't have the selling power they did three or four years ago. Lee is not even in the Internet business anymore, but says he has no regrets for passing up the various offers.

"It was quite a learning experience," he says. Yeah, I'll say … a $38 million learning experience. Yikes!

By the way, Sloan wants you to know that he owns ReallyReallyCoolStuff.com if anyone is interested. And he'll let it go for half of that $38 million price ... a mere $19 million. Hell, I'll let Boortz.com go for $18 million. Any takers?

Neal Boortz is the hugely popular nationally syndicated radio host.