During a radio interview Wednesday morning, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) made a startlingly candid statement about taxpayers and the wealth they earn and produce. It was her Joe the Plumber moment in that it broke the Democratic playbook rule about revealing the left’s true intentions.

She was interviewed on Chicago radio station WLS 890 AM by hosts Don Wade and Roma. You can listen to the entire interview here, but the part about taxes comes in around the 13:50 point.

Don Wade played a question that was posed to the GOP candidates at the recent Tea Party Debate in Florida. A young man at the debate asked a simple enough question: “Out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?”

Her response?

“I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it and it’s not a question of deserving because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together. And there are many things that we decide to do together like have our national security. Like have police and fire. What about the people that work at the National Institutes of Health who are looking for a cure for cancer?”

No one disputes that government needs some level of taxpayer revenue to function. The problem is with Schakowsky’s response and what it reveals about the left.

First, there’s an attitudinal rub. The word “deserve” implies some kind of government entitlement to what the private sector generates. It smacks of the typical backward perspective liberals have about taxpayer money: that it belongs to government first, and government will determine how much you get to keep. It’s the same kind of mentality that is in play whenever progressives say tax cuts will “cost” the government, as if the money originates with government, and is later given to the taxpayer.

These are the roots of class warfare which the Democrats use to scold the wealth producers for failing to pay their “fair share.”

Second, the things Schakowsky cited as necessary for government functioning are fine for the most part. Few would dispute their necessity. But if only government were so small! The issue is that government never stops with just these kinds of things. Federal, state, and local governments are bloated beyond recognition due to excessive spending, unnecessary bureaucracy, fraud, waste and mismanagement (Solyndra?).

Ours is not a tax problem. Ours is a spending problem.

When it comes to wealth generation, liberals promote a hefty confiscatory and redistributionist approach, but they usually try to disguise the real nature of their objectives when they speak publicly. In this interview, Congresswoman Schakowsky had her Joe the Plumber moment.

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama lifted the veil in his response to a question from Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher about raising taxes. Obama responded with: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Obama’s reply was a rare, let-your-guard-down moment in which he acknowledged the left’s redistributionist zeal (likely causing the mainstream media to cringe because they use the same playbook as the Democrats).

Jan Schakowsky’s candid – no doubt an oops! moment – was an atypical acknowledgement of the left’s confiscatory views on taxpayer wealth.

The problem the Democrats (and the media) have, however, is that everyone knows what the left is all about. Thanks to President Obama and his rush to stomp big government’s big shoes all across the country, Americans have awakened to the progressives and their true goals…and we don’t like it. What we earn in the private sector is ours, and we will determine what we give to government.

Follow Mike Angley on Twitter: @MikeAngley and on FaceBook: mike.angley.

Today, Carla is fighting back.

This morning, Carla asked a Texas appeals court to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against here by a developer involved in the Texas case.

Some background:

The Texas developer behind this abuse project is H. Walker Royall.  As the video makes clear, millions of taxpayer dollars later, the project is now an epic debacle.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

In March 2002, a group of private investors, led by a man named H. Walker Royall, formed a company called Freeport Waterfront Properties. Six months later, consultants hired by the city released a redevelopment plan — and, amazingly, it recommended a private marina, just what Mr. Royall’s investors had hoped for. The city did not open the marina project to competition; it just handed it over to Freeport Waterfront. Conveniently, Mr. Royall sat on the board of Sun Resorts, another company that the city selected, also without competition, this time to manage the marina once it was built.

The cozy arrangements didn’t stop there. Freeport agreed to give the private investors $6 million in the form of a no-recourse loan. . . . The only obstacle to this sweetheart deal was Western Seafood. It owned the land where Mr. Royall and his friends wanted to build. The city came up with a clever way around this problem. Claiming eminent domain, it proposed to take only part of the company’s land. . . . The tale gets worse.

Carla’s book gives an accurate and fascinating account of what happened in Freeport, Texas. If successful, the lawsuit against here could permanently ban Bulldozed from further printing and distribution.  [The book is available on amazon here.]

Carla summed this up at Real Clear Politics:

Royall has picked on the most vulnerable people he could find–writers, a scholar, a nonprofit publisher and a community newspaper. He didn’t sue more powerful venues, such as The Wall Street Journal, which favorably reviewed “Bulldozed,” or the Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine, which have the resources and the lawyers to defend themselves.

In the schoolyard, someone who acts like Royall is called a bully. We are grateful for friends, including the public interest advocacy organization the Institute for Justice, who have rallied to our side to represent us. In this latest misadventure unleashed by Kelo, what is at stake are not only property rights, but intellectual freedom and the First Amendment. It’s a battle worth fighting.

The Institute for Justice, the nation’s leading legal advocate for liberty, fights for victims like Carla Main all across the country. Today, we appeared in the Dallas courtroom beside Carla, asking a panel of judges to put an end to the lawsuit against her.

According to IJ Senior Attorney Dana Berliner:

Eminent domain for private development is the subject of nationwide public debate.  If Walker Royall doesn’t want anyone to talk about him or his development deals, he shouldn’t enter into deals that involve a city condemning his neighbor’s property.

Simply put, private developers shouldn’t be able to bulldoze private property.  And the victims of such abuse, and those who talk about it, should never be silenced.

Click here for more on the lawsuit. The Institute for Justice is also online at facebook, You Tube and twitter.

Many Americans have lost their jobs or have seen their pay and benefits reduced. Our nation’s families and small business job providers are all tightening their belts – all while they look at what’s happening in Washington in disbelief.

Spending is out-of-control. We have a national debt over $13 trillion; an annual budget deficit of nearly $1.6 trillion; and within the first eight months of our current fiscal year, the federal government has accumulated $935 billion in deficit spending. Currently, we are right on track to meet last year’s annual deficit record of $1.4 trillion. American taxpayers want spending reduced.

That is why Republican Whip Eric Cantor and the House Republicans have launched the YouCut project – where we go over the heads of Nancy Pelosi and her allies in Congress to engage the American people in the effort to reduce the deficit and cut wasteful spending now.

YouCut gives Americans the opportunity to vote each week for one of five wasteful spending programs and Republicans will force a vote on the one receiving the most votes. As of this week, Americans have casted over 850,000 votes on YouCut programs.

So far, Americans have asked House Republicans to push for a vote on a proposal to sell excess federal property, saving taxpayers up to $15 billion; a vote to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which would generate over $30 billion in savings for taxpayers; a vote on a spending cut to eliminate the proposed federal employee pay raise that would have saved hard pressed American families $2 billion this year and nearly $30 billion over 10 years; and a spending cut that would have saved $2.5 billion a year and not undue reforms that will weaken our welfare program.

We can all agree that this is not too much to ask for our government to stop spending money that we do not have, while families across the nation are facing many financial challenges.

Since we started this effort the Democrat Majority has voted down each attempt to reduce spending, but we are forcing change. Democrat leaders in Congress are now scrambling to try and find cuts that they can support. If we force cuts, YouCut will have been a great success. But the Democrats will never cut spending if we don’t keep up the pressure.

I encourage every American citizen to go to the YouCut website and make your voice heard in Congress and help get some fiscal sanity back in Washington today.

We must focus on what we can do to cut spending today, because every day we wait billions of dollars in new debt are passed along to our children and grandchildren. YouCut gives the American people a chance to say enough is enough.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is regularly in the news, usually in stories where persons working for them are charged or even convicted of voter fraud or other election-related crimes. ACORN’s corporate leadership always disavows any knowledge of such criminal wrongdoing.

ACORN is also quick to point out the public service work that the organizations engages in, mostly related to housing for low-income people. And over the years ACORN has received vast sums of federal money in connection with this housing work.

But now a video recording and transcript have surfaced that—if genuine—could show persons allegedly affiliated with ACORN involved in a host of state and federal crimes, even aiding and abetting underage prostitution and exploitation.

According to the tape and transcript, two individuals posing as young people involved in prostitution, under the false names of Kenya and James, go to an ACORN-identified office in Baltimore, Maryland. They tell the worker, identified as Shira, that they are trying to get a house, and slowly leak details until the worker understands that the girl is saying she’s involved in prostitution. At that point, since Kenya’s “job” is a cash-only business for which Kenya doesn’t file a tax return, Shira says, “let me get someone here from taxes,” and brings in another woman calling herself Tonja.

The undercover couple continues to weave their story of criminal activity, and finally say that one reason they need a house is because they have thirteen El Salvadoran girls, all around age fifteen, that are in this country illegally and that they are pimping out as prostitutes. In short, they need a house to serve as a brothel for these girls.

At this point, the woman identified as Tonja reacts to this appalling information by telling them that Kenya should list three of these underage foreign prostitutes as dependents so that Kenya can receive a tax benefit (but not all thirteen because that could attract government scrutiny). Tonja goes on to advise Kenya to falsify the appropriate forms to say that they are family members.

The bottom line is this: Both state and federal law enforcement should immediately launch a full investigation of this matter. They should determine if this two-hour recording is legitimate (there is no reason to believe it’s a hoax, but obviously the first step is to confirm that it’s authentic). If so, then depending o the governing law in that jurisdiction, those on the video tape could possibly be indicted and charged with numerous crimes, including prostitution, tax fraud, housing fraud, conspiracy to commit each of the above, and even charges related to underage prostitution.

While James and Kenya know that there are no underage El Salvadoran girls and no prostitution, the people identified on the tape as being affiliated with ACORN evidently believe these statements were true, making them conspirators in all of the relevant crimes depending on the applicable laws regarding conspiracy in that jurisdiction.

Crimes involving the exploitation of children are among the most heinous that human beings are capable of committing. They are especially toxic to the rule of law because they devastate young lives, and undermine the victims’ confidence in a just society. If this video recording is confirmed as authentic, then what happened in Baltimore is utterly reprehensible, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent permitted under the law.

What is all the more troubling here is that ACORN is involved in administering housing programs for the federal government, is involved in voter registration, and in jockeying to be a major part of the national census next year, going door-to-door and getting information from people in their homes.

There have now been criminal convictions of ACORN personnel in various states around the country, usually involving voting and elections. Should this video recording turn out to be legitimate, it raises grave concerns as to whether this is an isolated incident in Baltimore. It also raises a question of how high up the ACORN organizational ladder this information goes.

The truth needs to be sought out in this situation. And not a single dollar of taxpayer money should go to ACORN until it has been exonerated of all these incriminating allegations.

~

The scenario we posed the ACORN Housing employees in Baltimore is due to the application of similar power tactics. We gave ACORN a taste of its own medicine.  ACORN was alleged to be thug-like, criminal, and nefarious.  This criminal behavior was evidenced by a video of Baltimore ACORN community organizers breaking the locks on foreclosed homes.  Instead of railing against their radicalism, it is best to bring out this type of radicalism. Hannah Giles and I took advantage of ACORN’s regard for thug criminality by posing the most ridiculous criminal scenario we could think of and seeing if they would comply–which they did without hesitation.

Additionally, instead of focusing on foreclosure itself, which has become seemingly as politicized as abortion, we focused on crimes more difficult for the left to defend: trafficking of young helpless girls and tax evasion. The first group represents the severely disadvantaged, the second a threat to the distribution of wealth.

While manipulation or entrapment occurs when people are encouraged to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, the pre-set trap is their own.  These tactics allow the viewer to see ACORN’s soul; their playing field and their morality, out in the open.  Their system is based on conflict and change for its own sake.  This system is based on totalitarian principles and class war techniques. These people understand pressure, power and self-interest.  When the Baltimore employees saw we were shady dealers, their instincts clicked in, as we were prime recruits.

ACORN has ascended.  They elect our politicians and receive billions in tax money. Their world is a revolutionary, socialistic, atheistic world, where all means are justifiable.  And they create chaos, again, for it’s own sake.  It is time for us to be studying and applying their tactics, many of which are ideologically neutral.  It is time, as Hannah said as we walked out of the ACORN facility, for conservative activists to “create chaos for glory.”

Listen to the complete audio here.

View the complete transcript here.