IT is never advantageous to arouse vice among anyone, let alone the masses. Yet this administration is stoking envy among the middle classes in order to bolster support for Obama’s policies. The strategy is dishonest and maybe even dangerous.

Graphs in the Obama budget proposal reflect views and analysis of well known radical-left French economists who conclude that 70% of the wealth is unjustly held by a minuscule percentage of the people. (see Daniel Hettinger-Wall Street Journal- March 18-ish?) What the graphs do not illustrate is the subsequent and immediate transfer of that wealth to countless service people and artisans. I live in a neighborhood where some of the “excessively wealthy” reside and the streets are testament to this voluntary wealth transfer: they are lined with service vehicles of every kind imaginable almost every day of the week.   So, I wonder if the problem that the Obama Administration has with the wealthy is not that they hold the wealth but that they get to spend it where they choose—and the government has no power over it! The notoriously wealthy are stimulating the economy better than any peacetime government effort could. To summon up envy against them is to clog a machine that works satisfactorily while awakening the ugly side of us Regular Joes.

But rabble-rousing is also dangerous. The angry masses are difficult to control and have been known to get carried away–even turn on their leader–once their ire is raised. The French should remember this. The administration’s populist rhetoric is deceptive and dangerous. Good leaders should not have to invoke the Dark Side.