Businesses' New Not-So-Silent Partner

Henninger on Obama's speech to the Business Roundtable:

This is about more than just siphoning tax revenue. It's about big theme No. 2: "For the better part of three decades (my emphasis), a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth has been accumulated by the wealthy. Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries—and birthing new ones—has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality."

I take this to mean that while the tax and economic policies of the past four presidencies worked for the economy—birthing whole industries—it was bad for society, as Mr. Obama understands it.

He is proposing that the U.S. government both guide the economy ("the right balance between the private and public sectors," he said yesterday) and do so with a new, aggressively redistributive tax policy, which was made explicit in his just-released budget. Guide and redistribute. Agree or not, it's a bold argument. But will it work?

He doesn't seem to think so.

This isn't socialism, as the president himself says.

It's fascism.