At the small church my wife and I attend, there is a delightful lady — I'll call her Roberta — who is our faithful piano player.  She also, until now, taught piano after school to young students and to others, among them one of our grandchildren, whom we grandparents sponsored.

Just now, Roberta has suffered the sudden and premature loss of her husband.  He was a recently retired veteran police officer, and he had provided for her a survivor's benefit in the form of an annuity, or similar financial instrument. 

But there was a surprising proviso.  If Roberta's income exceeded a certain level, which was determined by a prescribed formula, the payments from the annuity would be disallowed.  This forced her to make a decision.  To the disappointment of the children who were her students and their parents, she had to tell them she could no longer be their teacher.

So we and other parents are scrambling to find replacement teachers and hoping they will match the ability of Roberta.

Here is another instance of infectious socialism.  It is a success in halting some of the work of an industrious, productive person in order to move her income down toward the less industrious.  It may be small, but this is a blatant instance of our 21st-century leftward drift.