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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (67899)	10/29/2008 6:42:39 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

I don't think your answer directly relates to my post, but I'll try and comment anyway. One of the main differences ts, is that most Americans don't take kindly to having a politician, a group of politicians, or the government take money from their pocket and giving it to others with less. That is pretty much what governments do: it's called taxation. The recipients may or may not have more than you - they may be individuals or companies, and of course some is spent on the government itself. I only really see three choices, though. Which of these do you prefer? Redistribute the wealth with higher tax on the rich - spread it from rich to poor via taxation. OR Leave the wealth (tax) exactly where it is, the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor (redistribution as now). OR Tax cuts for the rich - let the rich keep even more of their money, while the poor stay poor (no redistribution). Obviously in each case you could shuffle around the existing pot to spend more on some groups, less on others. I don't see why the third is so desirable. Especially when the tax levels proposed aren't the punitive ones post-war (remember the golden age had marginal tax rates for the richest in 80-90% range), but the hardly brutal ones of the mid-Clinton era. Most of us don't believe in Socialism/Communism/Marxism or for that matter, any of the -ism's of yesteryear. ... The Socialist/Marxist idea failed. Freedom works. More countries should try it. Hmm. Capitalism? Even older than Marxism. No, that's facetious. I agree, obviously. But the American route is not the only capitalist way, nor even necessarily the best for the majority of its people. Personally I find Scandinavian politics further left than my taste, too much concentration on the welfare state - but they are undeniably supremely functional states, consistently topping the quality of life rankings for the vast majority of their citizens, so despite my disagreements I have to feel they must have got the mix right. They're consistently capitalist, and don't stop successful people getting extremely rich - ask the founders of Nokia, Ericsson, IKEA or Tetrapak for example. But at the same time they have large government sectors: and possibly because of the political consensus, government is not seen as the problem to be shrunk or removed, but as something that can be and is improved. Maybe that's the key. If government is seen as a problem, it will be. If it's seen as an enabler, it can become that instead.

To: KLP who wrote (67899)	10/29/2008 7:46:43 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Most of us don't believe in Socialism/Communism/Marxism or for that matter, any of the -ism's of yesteryear. One other point, which I may have missed as I obviously don't see the attack ads. There seems to be a theme attacking Obama as a 'socialist', or indeed Marxist. Now from a European perspective this is blatantly false, we've seen real Marxist socialists and Obama is about as close to them as my bank account is close to Warren Buffet's... However if you won't believe me, this site seems objective. At least, they rate ads and claims by both sides and seem to do so fairly. cqpolitics.com Sen. John McCain ’s campaign has seized on Sen. Barack Obama ’s offhand remark that he wants to “spread the wealth around” to claim that Obama is a socialist. Even in the context of a heated presidential campaign, that’s a remarkably incendiary accusation. It’s become a standard part of the McCain campaign rhetoric, uttered by surrogates and candidates alike. Gov. Sarah Palin ’s remarks in Springfiled, Mo., are a good example: “Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth, which means — you know what that means,” she said at a rally on Oct. 24, 2008. “It means that government takes your money, (handed) out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, and Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. And yet to Joe the Plumber, he said it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with socialism.” ... Socialism refers most commonly to a system in which the government owns the means of production and distribution of goods. That is, the state truly is responsible for creating and spreading the wealth. ... So when Wurzelbacher brought up a flat tax, Obama responded by endorsing progressive taxation – the principle of taxing those with higher incomes at a higher percentage than those with lower incomes. And it is in that context that Obama said he wanted to “spread the wealth.” Progressive taxes do indeed spread the wealth a bit. But they do so much more modestly than government owning the means of production. Few serious policy makers — including McCain — consider progressive taxation socialist. In fact, on the Oct. 26, 2008 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, McCain stood by a comment he made in 2000 that “there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more” in taxes when you “reach a certain level of comfort.” “You put into different, different categories of wealthier people paying, paying higher taxes into different brackets,” McCain told host Tom Brokaw, as if to say progressive taxes are a no-brainer. Indeed, progressive taxation has been a cornerstone of American tax policy since the federal government first collected an income tax in 1863. It was based on the Tax Act of 1862, which President Abraham Lincoln signed, and which imposed a “duty of three per centum” on all income over $600, and five percent on income over $10,000. Obama’s proposed top tax rate of 39.6 percent, (up from today’s 36 percent) is considerably higher than that. But it’s not particularly high in the context of modern times; as he pointed out to Wurzelbacher, it’s about what top earners paid in the Clinton years. In 1987, the top tax rate was 38.5 percent. In 1944, it was 94 percent on the top portion of the highest incomes. So no, Obama’s tax increase on those making more than $250,000 would not represent a transformation of the U.S. system of government. His desire to “spread the wealth” through progressive taxation makes him no less a capitalist than McCain, or Lincoln. Palin’s allegation that Obama wants to “experiment with socialism” seems designed less to inform than to inflame. We rated her remarks “Pants on Fire” wrong.