At some point you’ve made enough money, or: we’ll have to decide whether we’ll permit you to make any profits or not.

Commentary's John Steele Gordon noticed something interesting - but not surprising - during President Obama’s press conference Monday. He writes:

President Obama’s press conference yesterday—in which he only took questions from left-leaning reporters apparently–contained an amazing statement. It should be noted the first two instances of the first person singular pronoun in the sentence refer to Barack Obama, President of the United States. The second two refer to Barack Obama, taxpaying citizen.

Here’s Obama’s statement:

And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I’m able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they’ve got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.

Huh.

Those who had once simpered: “I don’t want to destroy the rich, I only want to seize a little bit of their surplus to help the poor, just a little, they’ll never miss it!” – Then, later, had snapped: “The tycoons can stand being squeezed, they’ve amassed enough to last them for three generations” – then, later, had yelled: “Why should the people suffer while businessmen have reserves to last a year?” – now were screaming: “Why should we starve while some people have reserves to last a week?” What were they counting on?

Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged