One of my classmates forwarded the following email to me the other day. Check it out:“Yesterday on my way to lunch, I passed one of the homeless guys in that area, with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.'
Once in the restaurant my waiter had on an 'Obama 08' tee shirt.
When the bill came, I decided not to tip the waiter and explained to him while he had given me exceptional service, that his tee shirt made me feel he obviously believes in Senator Obama's plan to redistribute the wealth. I told him I was going to redistribute his tip to someone that I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. He stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $3 and told him to thank the waiter inside, as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy looked at me in disbelief but seemed grateful.
As I got in my truck, I realized this rather unscientific redistribution experiment had left the homeless guy quite happy for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn.
Well, I guess this
redistribution of wealth is going to take a while to catch on with those doing the work.”
What do you guys think? Is this a fair characterization of Obama’s policies? If not, how do you spin Obama’s now infamous conversation with Joe the Plumber? Can you think of a country which has successfully experimented with socialism in the past? What would make this time different? Is this the "change" America needs? Do you think more free handouts for one class, paid for by the hard work of those in another, are really going to “help” those in the former? Comments? How about those tongue-in-cheek pictures?
12 comments:
Ok So here is my 2 cents.
Obama's current plan will be raising taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year (Couples $250,000), while at the same time providing a tax relief to 95% of americans. This tax proposition is much more than a mere calibration of taxes (such as happened under the Clinton administration). Here's why:
• The thing that gets me is not the tax raises but the supposed "tax cuts". The percentage of wage earning Americans which pay taxes is currently 60% to 70%. This places the working Americans with no tax obligations at 30% to 40%. How is cutting the taxes of 95% of Americans even possible?
The Washington Post explains it very clearly.
" More than $400 billion of the money over the next 10 years would take the form of refundable tax credits paid in cash to people who already pay no federal income tax." Not to mention the tax credits that will be given to those who do pay taxes but earn less than $200,000.
How will he fund these "tax cuts"? Not by cutting government spending, but by raising taxes on those of you (definitely not me) that earn more than$200,000. This is not tax calibration. This is deliberately taking money from those whom have earned it and giving it directly, in cash, to those who have not.
If these tax raises were spent on public works and infrastructure etc.. this would be a completely different story, but they are not. This tax policy could quite possibly turn into the greatest direct transfer of wealth that this country has ever seen.
Put aside your ambition, ingenuity and brains and get out your hammer and sickle because the 9 to 5 (if even that much) is all that is required for these hand outs.
Thomas Jefferson:
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."
I will post more on this later, after I conclude some more research. But I think calling Barack Obama a Socialist is like saying tomatoes are vegetables. There's no such thing as a definitive definition of a vegetable, and there's no real definitive definition of what socialism is. We already live socialism in some degrees already. But I have to agree with you that Barack Obama's plan is redistribution of wealth and I don't think there's any argument to be made that it's anything else. But I also think there's more going on than just redistribution of wealth. But like I said, I'll have a more full response in a couple days once I have more time.
Oh and one more thing, I just wanted to post the link of Stephen Colbert interviewing the ACTUAL socialist candidate for president, it's really funny. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/189688/october-28-2008/socialist-candidate-for-president---brian-moore
Was that a fair characterization of Obama's policies? No, because likely that waiter wasn't making more than $250,000 a year. I think it is a little extreme to call Barack Obama a socialist. Why? Well there is a big continuum(probably spelled that wrong) of so-called socialism and any one person can fall somewhere along that continuum. For example, socialism to the extreme is communism, he is not a communist. Nationally owned parks is socialism, but we don't all get our feathers ruffled over that. So the question becomes where can we find ourselves on this continuum that is the best for everyone? Might I contrast our last two presidencies. The economic philosophy of Bill Clinton was that a strong middle-class makes for a strong economy. The economic philosophy of George Bush was give tax-cuts to everyone, the rich getting the most, then spend more than any other president and just use borrowed funds from China and increase the national debt by trillions. At the end of Bill Clinton's presidency there was a surplus, the economy was booming, and his popularity was higher than that of Ronald Reagan. At the end of George Bush's presidency the economy went to the tank, there's a huge deficit, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and George Bush has one of the lowest approval ratings in recorded history. So yes Devin, I strongly believe this is the "change" America needs. A strong middle class means strong economy which means the rich get to make even more money. Everybody wins. I don't think an increase of 4% on someone's taxes who's making multi-millions a year is gonna take food off the table. But taking away a single mom's food stamps so some rich guys can keep his extra 4% just might.
OK, my turn for the 2 cents:
1.) That email was conceptual, not actual. I know my opinion is different than others, but I think that the idea portrayed in it IS accurate. I know waiters don't make 200K/yr, but I think those who do would still be upset if someone - government - took a much larger percentage of their hard earned income away from them and redistributed it, in the form of straight-up cash, to those who they thought deserved it more.
2.) Here's a quick and dirty definition of socialism I found in one of my old poly sci books: "In this model, the state plays a major role in redistributing wealth without completely taking over its production. The government uses fiscal and monetary policies to regulate the economy. High tax revenues and targeted buget expenditures place powerful tools in the hands of a 'benevolent' state, which oversees a vast system of social programs. Socialism disdains the profit motive, resists free market solutions to economic problems, and advocates basic equality in the distribution of material goods. It blames greed, envy, corruption, and crime on injustices built into the nature of capitalistic society." (Nations and Governments, Thomas Magstadt) Sounds a lot like the Obama platform to me.
3.) I'm not calling Barack a communist. I just find it hard not to label his platform, as laid out during the campaign, as one with socialist concepts (not surprising after seeing who his "mentors" in college were either). He might not be AS socialist as some, but his platform consisted of (among other things) socialist ideas such as redistributing the wealth, creating many new social spending programs costing trillions, resisting free market solutions, and encouraging class envy by painting all those in the upper class as greedy, evil and corrupt and those in the lower class as downtrodden, oppressed, helpless, 'little guys' to justify his redistribution plan. To be sure, there are some deserving of those labels in both classes, but people still flock to America because it is the land of opportunity! Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe that Americans in the lower income bracket who are willing to put in the necessary time and effort are not doomed to live their life impoverished. America becomes weaker when one class blames and villifies another for its economic status when they are not powerless to change it.
4.) Next topic: Bill Clinton. There are many things on which I will not defend George Bush (his pseudo-conservative economic policy, for one example), but I do get tired of the cliche "peace and prosperity" line coming from the lib camp. This label is superficial, at best, because it overlooks many important facts.
Let's first look at "peace." Sure, there was domestic peace, but nothing remotely comparable to 9/11happened on Clinton's watch. And another thing, what about the TRULY helpless and oppressed millions of hutus and tutsis slaughtered in Rwanda, or the millions tragically exterminated in eastern europe through the ethnic cleansing in the 90's? Clinton largely turned a blind eye to both, and only (and very reluctantly) committed forces to Bosnia after most of the damage had already been done.
Next, "proseprity." I love how libs give Clinton all the praise and credit, but ignore that the Repubs controlled Congress from 1994-2006 as if that were meaningless. I'm not saying the Republicans deserve ALL the credit either, but many people much smarter than myself agree that the economic "prosperity" of the late 90's was much more a function of the e-commerce and dot-com booms than having anything to do with Bill Clinton or his policies. Let's just stop the blame game that can go back and forth forever and stick to the facts.
5.) Speaking of facts, I loved the statistic about presidential popularity comparing clinton to reagan. Yes, at the end of his term, Clinton was "higher" than Reagan in job approval . . . by a whopping 1 percent! (65% to 64% http://uspolitics.about.com/od/polls/l/bl_historical_approval.htm)! While we're on approval ratings, here are some more facts about Clinton as he left office: "67% of Americans say he's not honest and trustworthy. 77% say he lacks high moral and ethical standards. And just 44% view him favorably 'as a person.'" (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll_clintonlegacy010117.html)
I haven't looked them up, but I highly doubt that Reagan's ratings for the same categories are as pathetically dismal as Clinton's.
Not surprising given that Clinton's sexual escapades while desecrating the Oval Office with Lewinsky behind Hillary's back were made public.
From Gordon B. Hinckley: "The position of President of the United States carries with it a tremendous trust. In my judgment, an inescapable trust. You can't divorce private behavior from public leadership. I don't think it is asking too much of any public officer to stand tall, to be a model before the people, not only in ordinary aspects of leadership, but in the manner in which he conducts himself." (quoted in Winder's, 'Presidents and Prophets')
6.) I'd be extremely hesitant if I were an Obama supporter before criticizing the current budget deficit and the borrowing and spending habits of Bush. Obama is going to make Bush look like Rush Limbaugh by the time he's done. It's no secret that we're going to have bailouts and stimulus packages coming out of our noses. And there's no WAY taxes are only going up by "4%" to pay for all of them. The money's gotta come from somewhere! I can already hear the liberal excuse if Obama's executive and Reid/Pelosi's legislative policies only worsen the economy. Keeping true to the blame game, this is what you will hear: "If it wasn't for Bush, we wouldn't have to spend all this money to clean up his mess!" How convenient. I hope America sees that 4 years should be plenty of time for a democratic president and congress to get their crack at fixing the economy.
As always, sorry for yet another novel.
I think there are a few things we agree upon, and one of those was the lack of moral character by Bill Clinton. Moral judgement went out the window. We have seen this with several politicians, most recently by the governor of New York. I am sure Ronald Reagan creamed Bill Clinton in those other statistics you mentioned. But while Bill Clinton was an absolute failure at being a moral role model, he was a tremendous leader in other ways. But as for this bailout thing, it probably should be our next topic of discussion. I can't believe republicans would get behind this sort of thing, and I know a lot of republicans who don't. Give the rich their money back, let them make risky investments on subprime mortgages, and then when that backfires, use our tax dollars (like we didn't give them enough the first go-around with the Bush tax cuts) to bail them out so we don't hit the second great depression. So I am blaming Bush and his administration for a lot of things. Deregulation, pinning the national debt on me and my children and theirs, and waging a multi-trillion dollar war against a country with limited support from the world. There's a reason why his approval rating is in the 20's and Clinton, even though he was impeached by congress, was in the 60's. We gave the republicans their shot and look what happened...now it's time for our turn. Devin I'll make you a deal, if Obama is able to turn things around in the next four years and you are satisfied with his performance, you have to vote for him in 2012. If he, Reid, and Pelosi, just screw it up even more, I'll vote for the republican candidate in 2012. Deal?
I'm going to make a bigger comment later, but first I wanted to give you guys the chance to see something really interesting that happened during the election that most people don't know about I don't think. Bill O'Reilly actually sat down with Obama and had a big long interview where he talked about all of the controversial topics of the time, including his "socialist tenets" in redistributing the wealth. He actually called him "Robin Hood Obama" to his face (which is what reminded me of it in the first place when I saw that picture). Anyway, it's a really interesting interveiw, so I'd like to give you guys some time to watch it and soak it in a bit before I give my input because I'm going to end up quoting it a lot. Here's a link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssl7laJ395E
I think that should work, if not just google o'reilly obama interveiw, it's easy enough to find.
Sounds like a deal Creighton. I've already got a post prepared about the bailouts and stimulus packages, but before I post it, I want to give those who haven't weighed in yet on this redistribution of wealth post the chance to do so. (Jenn, Chris, Ev, Jeff, and anyone else who reads this and feels so inclined, I'm curious to hear your thoughts as well!
Oh and your dad told me that you did a paper about economic growth over a period of time in the year of the election. I hope you know what I'm talking about, but we will use that standard whatever it was for this 4 year experiment. But if Obama's policies end up failing, I will vote for the republican nominee in 2012.
How could I forget? ha ha, it was my 25 page senior thesis for my economics capstone class. I came up with a multiple linear regression model that predicts what percentage of the popular vote an incumbent president will get based on 3 economic factors (inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth rates) plus the average approval rating for the two years prior to reelection. So we'll take it on a test run for Obama in 2012. I'm excited to see how accurate it is in practice - in theory, it is dang accurate (the unexplained variation in the model is only 10%). I'll bring the thesis home for Christmas so you can check it out. Good times.
Redistribution: We don’t know yet what Obama will DO. We have precious little information about what Obama has actually SAID. An off-hand comment to Joe the Plumber on the rope-line is not exactly a firm commitment on policy. The troubling thing about the glimpses that we have on Obama’s economic philosophy is that they are not inconsistent with a move toward greater socialism. Obama has been very cagey about what he intends to do. “Change” is indefinite by nature. In the process of not really standing for anything firm, Obama has also resisted solid denials of a socialistic bent. But he is that way on everything. He blew through a half-dozen tax plans, and it is unclear now which plan he is on and more importantly what the timing is. He has been masterful at giving himself loads and loads of policy elbow-room. This is smart.
What will he do with all that wiggle room? Based on his past statements and associations and education, I believe he will move as far to the left as a keen sense of self-preservation will allow him. One of the restraints is the near unanimous consensus among economists that raising taxes, even (especially!) on the rich is a horrible idea during a recession. Obama understands that as the stock market tumbles with capital frightened away by the prospect of higher taxes, he must distance himself from the high tax prospect or risk getting blamed for an FDR-style deepening/extension of economic trouble. So the talk of raising taxes on the rich has toned down or disappeared altogether. The other restraint is the fear of too obviously accepting the “socialist” label by having overtly socialist policies. An example of this is disguising a handout as a tax cut, thereby labeling an otherwise straightforward cash redistribution as a conservative move. Wow! In the O’Reilly interview Obama referred to this as “neighborliness.” Double Wow!!
I know this is a long time coming, I believed I promised further commentary about Obama’s proposed income redistribution plan back in December. Although I doubt anyone will still be paying attention to this post, I have as it turned out come up with an answer in the process of blogging for one of my classes, so I figured why not? Better late than never, right? I actually had to do some editing, so I hope it all makes sense.
One of the most misleading parts of the whole issue for me has been how typically the focus of debate has been about whether or not it is a “good thing” (in-and-of-itself) to take money from rich people and give it to poor people. Though I definitely have my own thoughts on this, I think the focus there is a bit misguided, because on those terms the rich man is painted as “evil” for wanting to hoard his money and who cares how many people starve. As Creighton said “I don't think an increase of 4% on someone's taxes who's making multi-millions a year is gonna take food off the table.” Obviously on those terms it’s hard to argue against “total efficiency” and helping out the helpless because every dollar is more valuable to a poor man than a rich man, and doing so re-enforces the notion of being a “cold-hearted conservative.” Nevertheless, there are some very disturbing characteristics of income redistribution as a matter of principle, whether it’s all-out communism or partially socialistic income redistribution (later it will become apparent how these problems apply to Obama’s redistribution plans even though they aren’t “completely” socialist).
Again I’ll admit there is definite merit to that side of the argument: I think it’s laudable to try to make sure people don’t starve or have no medical coverage. However, though the intentions are pure, the method of implementation must not be overlooked, either, and it is on that point that I would like to focus. Obama’s proposed method of economic re-distribution (as I understand it) works like this: tax the crap out of rich people and give “tax cuts” (which are really nothing more than welfare checks) to the lower and middle class. Now, pretend I’m a rich guy and I’m a total Scrooge: I worked very hard for my money and I absolutely don’t want to give it up, come what may, so I decide to stick it to Obama and not pay my taxes….what happens? Before long I get audited by the IRS and I, much like Thoreau (in principle—he was imprisoned for not paying taxes for something he didn’t agree with), get thrown in jail!!! No wonder Bill O’Reilly called him “Robin Hood Obama” in his interview during the election period (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS-zjbI2q_Q or just google O’Reilly-Obama Interview pt. 2, it’s a very interesting conversation, highly recommended): he really is stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor, and there’s (practically speaking) nothing they can do about it. Now this may seem like at least a justified exception to many kind-hearted people—the character of Robin Hood is considered heroic after all—but there are nonetheless concerns on the other hand.
Now don’t get me wrong: it’s not like I (in this hypothetical) deserve a medal or anything. I will be the first to admit that’s pathetically selfish, but still…it was my decision, and one of the consequences of believing in freedom of conscience is letting people make stupid or even evil decisions. You can’t have it both ways: either people are free to make good and bad choices, or they are not free at all. And as much as I hate seeing poor people suffer, I also hate seeing people forced to do things against their will. That’s what the Declaration of Independence and especially the Bill or Rights were all about: upholding the freedom of conscience to believe, say, and do whatever you want (unless the government has a compelling interest in preventing it). Now at the extreme we’re dealing with a trade-off between infringing on liberty or permitting extreme suffering and inequality. Neither alternative is desirable, so naturally it’s a very hard choice, morally and politically.
But to be fair, that’s an absolutely cynical approach. True there may be some Scrooge’s out there, but there are also rich people who are actually very generous even when not forced to be through taxation. So it’s not like the entire lower class is going to starve if the government doesn’t “steal from the rich” on their behalf, because rich people are still free to be generous if they so choose. However, if you pre-empt personal choice and freedom of conscience because you don’t trust rich people to be benevolent, you also run the risk of creating resentment and hostility on their part—and this is just as true for the benevolent as it is for the selfish because they will feel like their charity loses meaning if it wasn’t even their choice, not to mention the fact that government has totally taken upon itself the responsibility of looking out for the underprivileged. For them it’s as if they were getting ready to make their bed, but before they can their mother storms in and starts making threats, forcing them to do what they were already going to do anyway. In that situation, you become inclined to change your mind and resist the pressure, no matter how badly you wanted to do it in the first place. And in the case of the person who didn’t want to make his bed in the first place, the resentment is obviously going to be significantly worse. That’s exactly the kind of thing that inspired the American Revolution in the first place: England was bossing the colonies around left and right, forcing them to do things they didn’t want to do (involuntary taxation in particular, interestingly enough) to the point where the colonies felt totally justified in revolting. Obama will most likely see similar resistance to his method of forcing benevolence on rich people through taxation. True, taking care of the little man is a form of “neighborliness” (from the O’Reilly interview), but is it really “neighborly” when it’s forced or compelled?
And then there’s another problem (this is where economics comes into play): if Obama’s taxes on the rich become too burdensome, then at some point they will stop being benevolent at all, even with the money they still have, and they will do everything they can to minimize their losses. This causes two problems. First, everyone rich person (or at least most of them) who is taxed will most likely become a Scrooge with respect to whatever wealth they retain. So rather than put most of their money back into the economy through investment so they can make money on it, they will start hiding it in offshore accounts and doing whatever they can to keep what they have. The second problem is they will do other things to cut their losses in terms of how they run their businesses. Say I own a factory and the government starts taxing half of everything I make. At this point I have two choices: either I can take the hit and earn only half of what I was earning (in terms of take-home profit), or I can raise my prices and pay my employees less. This will have a tendency to even things out for the middle class, because although they will get more from the government, their wages will decrease and their costs of living will go up, so they probably won’t be much better off than before. If anything, only the unemployed will be better off.
So I guess in the end it all comes down to a trade-off: do whatever it takes to make things easier for the under-privileged, or respect people’s freedom of conscience and hope enough of them do the right thing? Though this isn’t easy to say, much as I hate knowing some will inevitably have a hard time, I personally am less comfortable with having the government violate people’s freedom in order to help them out. If nothing else, I think that sets bad precedent: if the government can steal your money at will, what other rights will it want to violate in the name of “benevolence”? How long will it then be before the Bill of Rights suddenly is undone? It may seem perfectly agreeable now for all those excited people who voted for “change,” but can we really count on government’s opinion of what’s “good” remaining consistent with our own further down the road (say, in four or eight years when Obama’s administration ends)? Hitler, if you’ll remember, rose to power based on great promises to put food on people’s tables (they were still in a depression from WWI), but, after the people gave him power, he never gave it back. One would hope that the Constitution itself would be protection enough against such a tyrant (and it probably would), but I, for one, would rather not put it to the test.
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