“No one should be surprised at this. Whatever else you can say about Obama, he has never made a secret of his redistributionist philosophy”

you are right no one SHOULD be, but the only people not surprised are the small minority of us who do pay close attention. Your average person who voted for him had NO IDEA what he actually stood for. There were plenty of slip-ups, but the press quashed those and the only thing your average voter saw were the lies (yes lies) in his speeches and debates that did not sound redistributionist at all. He turned around and denied he meant any such thing after slipping up like he did with joe the plumber. some i know are definitely waking up and they are totally shocked. others still just don’t pay that much attention and still have no idea of the implications his actions and policies have. my fear is that no matter the line, the spending will already have been and will be so out of control that the set-point will be permanently changed.