Taking a cue from Barack Obama’s “you didn’t build that” pronouncement, Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released a new ad seeking to justifying her planned wealth tax. In the ad, Warren bloviates, “You built a great fortune? Good for you. I guarantee you built it at least in part using workers all of us helped pay to educate, getting your goods to market on roads all of us paid to build.” Ah, the socialist fallacy of government being the ultimate source for everything, including people’s wealth.

On the back of her fraudulent claim that an increased tax on wealthy Americans will fully fund her $52 trillion Medicare for All plan, Warren is also leveling a wealth tax on top of that. Just how many millionaires and billionaires does Warren believe exist in America? And why is she entitled to redistribute their money?

Part of the reason the economy is doing so well today is because Republicans cut taxes, which has proven to fuel economic growth with more jobs and higher wages. The only credit that can honestly be given to the government is that it got out of the way. Warren wants to hit the brakes on the economy out of spite, claiming that millionaires and billionaires don’t deserve to own or control their own fortunes.

Warren’s fellow socialist Bernie Sanders sees things the same way, with his call for an 8% tax on the richest Americans. Ironically, when Sanders was asked about a government-instituted mandatory firearms “buyback” program, he stated, “A mandatory buyback is essentially confiscation, which I think is unconstitutional. It means that I’m going to walk into your house and take something whether you like it or not. I don’t think that stands up to constitutional scrutiny.” Well said, Bernie. Now how about applying that same sound logic to the government’s taking of people’s hard-earned money simply because they have more than others?

Both Warren and Sanders see individuals as vassals of the government, rather than the government as beholden to the people. The government owes its existence to the people, not the people to the government. The Founders declared Americans’ rights to be inalienable precisely because they recognized those rights come from God and not from government. The government does not grant rights; rather it is tasked with recognizing them and defending them.

Socialists like Warren and Sanders advocate flipping the whole system on its head, and they point to wealth disparity as the sole justification for such a radical and foolish endeavor. Using the politics of envy, they condemn the wealthy and successful for the “sin” of industriousness. How dare the wealthy be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labors!