McCain's Hero: More Socialist Than Obama!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Your post would have went a lot further had you listed exactly how Teddy "spread the wealth around".

You see we have two issues or questions here.

1. Should all people pay the same percentage... a "flat tax" to finance the cost of govt.... Or should the rich pay a higher percentage> It would seem Teddy R. would say yes.

2. Should we tax the rich at higher rates so we can not only pay for Govt but also to give money directly to others who would like to have it?

See you never blunted the main charge at Obama. A progressive income tax is a given.

What most people are uncomfortable with is the idea of taking money from one group to hand out to another.

Here is a perfect example of how this is done:

Under "the earned income tax" millions and millions of people who paid almost nothing in for federal taxes will get a check from Washington, up to 3 or so thousand dollars.

They had to have made a minimal amount working and not exceeded a maximum.

I myself have collected this welfare type payment as have many of you.

Barack has pledged to raise this give-away.

Thats the difference with Barack, he is a socialist at heart, wanting to not only make rich people pay more to fund govt, he wants to redistribute wealth.

First, a progressive tax policy was not invented by Obama, nor is he the first presidential candidate to suggest it. In fact, all he wants to do is repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy that Bush gave, bringing us back to the time of Bill Clinton.

Secondly, by the parameters that you are using to define redistribution of wealth, then you must also recognize that when worker's wages have remained essentially stagnant for a great majority of Americans while the top income earners wages have gone up significantly is also a redistribution of wealth. From top to bottom, a company for example, creates profit through the hard work of all its employees. If all the employees are not getting fairly compensated in ratio to the top executives' pay, then you have a severe case of redistribution of wealth, which, according to you, is Socialism.

As for the Earned Income Tax Credit, do you realize which President implemented that program? Yep, you guessed it....the 'ol Gipper himself. If you're gonna call Obama a socialist for his progressive tax proposal, just be consistent and also call Ronald Reagan a socialist with the same condemnation.

Hopefully you'll see the double standard being played out over this issue among the Republican Party. This amounts to nothing more than schoolyard name-calling.

I believe the Earned income tax credit was not vetoed by Bush 1, so it does hang around his neck.not Reagan's ( as best I recall).

But we both know which party birthed it.

Are you of the opinion that the workings of the "free Market"... can somehow be called socialism?

You suggest that because the rich got richer in a free market... somehow that COULD be considered socialism (wealth being distributed)

My friend you are way long on that stretch.

Ahem...

...But one of the greatest forms of welfare – the ultimate free lunch – is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC in government jargon).

It has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. Economists from Berkeley and Harvard love it. Senators Russell Long and Lloyd Bentsen made it their "signature initiative." Nobel laureate Gary Becker praised it for aiding poor families without increasing reliance on public assistance. Business Week columnist and Wall Street Journal contributing editor Robert J. Barro claims that is discourages welfare. Ronald Reagan heralded it as "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance11.html

Come on now, Danno. I want you to call Reagan a socialist with same condemnation that you are doing with Obama for his tax proposal. Be consistent or your argument has no credibility.

Edited October 27, 2008 by Jabberwocky