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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Lane3 who wrote (10512)2/1/2006 3:56:47 PM
From: JohnM  Read Replies (1) of 541768
 
Ah, whose tinkering with the meaning of words here?

"Redistributionist" means taking from the haves and giving to the have nots in the form of a welfare state.

From your corner of the political world it may well mean that. In my corners it is used repeatedly to describe the Bush tax cuts. And since the term itself carries no directional meaning, it's quite proper to apply to both circumstances.

As long as we use the tax money for general purposes, we merely have a progressive tax system, not a redistributionist one.

We have less and less of either. Progressivity is probably gone, given the tax breaks the wealthy receive and the loopholes (on this score, as I get deeper into retirement and managing my own retirement funds, I discover item after item that is deliberately structured to benefit the wealthy. It's quite clear why we continue to choose against public funding of political campaigns). That's a long story with many chapters but it's hard to imagine the theme as any other.

Even with your definition, I think that's pretty simple. It takes from those who now have health insurance and gives to those who don't. Nothing complicated about that.

Actually, it doesn't. It changes the health insurance is paid for. Instead of a workplace based tax it is a part of income taxes. More folk have but it takes away from no one. Anyone with money can afford better protection but a floor is provided for everyone.
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