(Washington Post) It was billed as President Obama’s big speech on reducing the federal budget deficit. But the Wednesday afternoon address sounded at times like the speech he did not give when he launched his reelection campaign last week. … He repeatedly called for increasing taxes for people who make more than $250,000 a year to help balance the budget, an idea strongly opposed by many congressional Republicans. He signaled strong opposition to how House Republicans would reform Medicare.

Perhaps the president would do well to recall the sentiments of the great philosopher Voltaire, who said, “A government in which it is permitted for a certain class of men to say, ‘Let those pay taxes who work, we should not pay because we do not work,’ is no better than a government of Hottentots.”

The Hottentots were cannibals.