With today’s noontime Senate vote providing a veto-proof majority President Obama is sure to sign into law legislation to extend the U.S. debt ceiling.  Crisis averted – for now.

Next up on the agenda needs to be true reform to restructure an unsound and inefficient economy.  Credible plans are needed but where will they come from?

In a Rose Garden speech shortly after the Senate vote President Obama explained that Americans who can afford it must pay their fair share (of taxes).  Fair?  What exactly is fair?  It’s a four letter word in more than a literal sense.

To understand what’s fair is to understand what isn’t fair.  Fair is NOT generational theft – forcing our children and our children’s children to pay for today’s obligations and promises.  Fair is NOT a massive redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have nots.  Fair is NOT usurping private property rights by forcing creditors with legally valid claims (e.g. bondholders and banks) to take a backseat to special interests (e.g. unions) through prepackaged automaker bankruptcies and then demonizing the banks as greedy.

President Obama’s ‘those who can afford it must pay their fair share’ mantra is eerily similar to the failed central/planned economic and political philosophies of Marxist, Communist and Socialist states offering ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ solutions.

We’re NOT suggesting our President is a Socialist.  We’re NOT suggesting one party has better ideas than the other.  We ARE stating unequivocally that failed policies of the past have no place in our present state.  We ARE certain that the current political leadership whether Democrat or Republican has offered nothing in the way of real, meaningful and pragmatic solutions.

The way to lead is not to determine how to redistribute the proverbial pie but to figure out how to grow it.  The way to be fair Mr. Obama is to allow Americans to benefit from the fruits of their labor – not redistribute them to others.

You want to speak of fairness?  Fine.  Let’s find a definition we can all agree to.  Until then save the rhetoric.  Americans of any party would appreciate that.