The "class warfare" card is wearing pretty thin. To accuse me of engaging in class warfare by accusing the Republicans of engaging in class warfare is a downright Orwellian defense. The whole technique of preemptively mirroring an accusation is losing its power.

That second paragraph about some "income pool" being an odd mindset but common to liberals is news to me. I think you're subtly trying to work in a Social Darwinist argument that in the "natural order of things" a society would develop an extreme distribution of wealth and power because there's an extreme distribution of natural ability, or in some expressions of the canon, moral fiber. What nonsense. The very fact that you can make the accusation of government tinkering having an effect on the distribution of wealth is an acknowledgement that the outcome is heavily influenced by circumstances. A more accurate analogy with evolution would be to observe that it optimizes species to local environments, rather than "strives for perfection". Winners and losers in an economy are chosen by the arbitrary rules of the system, not by their inherent fitness measured against any objective standard.

The question on the table is the eternal one: Should a free market system benefit a lot of people to a moderate degree, or a few people to an extreme degree? The answer's not governed by laws of nature. We can choose.

Re: the last paragraph: I didn't say that entitlements had been cut, I said that benefits had been cut--per-capita assistance. Remember the bipartisan welfare reform of the mid-90s? So the obvious reason we're paying more in entitlements is that more people are receiving them. Not, as you Republicans always try to imply, because the benefit level has gone up. Poverty's up, employment's down.

Who's been bragging about holding all three branches of the government for the last six years and running the show with an iron fist?

Power's not as much fun as it once was, is it? Accountability's a bitch.