As Orin points out below, Drudge is highlighting excerpts of a 2001 interview Barack Obama did with Chicago public radio, in which he advocated "redistributive change." The context was a discussion of the Supreme Court and constitutional law.
Before getting to the controversy, the whole interview is worth listening to for another reason: Obama gives a very impressive performance as a constitutional scholar. Even though he was holding down other jobs while teaching at Chicago, he clearly had thought a lot about constitutional history, and how social change is or is not brought about through the courts. Among other things, I was impressed that rather than accept the rather cartoonish view that often prevails about the practical significance of Brown v. Board of Education, he knew that very few black students in the South were attending integrated schools as late as the early 1960s (almost a decade after Brown), and that it was only the threat of a cutoff of federal funds that really got desegregation moving. Being realistic about the practical effect of Brown is heresy in some circles, but Obama is correct. Relatedly, Obama was clearly influenced by Rosenberg/Klarman thesis that the Supreme Court rarely diverges much from social consensus, and can't be expected to.
On the issue of whether Obama endorses redistribution of wealth through the courts, it certainly sounds to me like he thinks the Rodriguez case (holding 5-4 that unequal funding of public schools does not violate the Equal Protection Clause) was wrongly decided, and that state courts that have mandated equal funding for public schools are correct. But he also seems to think that it was a huge error for activists to try to achieve more general redistribution through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (In the waning days of the Warren Court, there was a movement to try to constitutionalize a right to a minimum income.) Co-interviewee Dennis Hutchison even suggests that in pre-interview conversation, Obama agreed with him that Goldberg v. Kelley, establishing procedural protections for welfare recipients, was wrongly decided, or at least promised much more than it could possibly achieve.
Based on this interview, it seems unlikely that Obama opposes constitutionalizing the redistributive agenda because he's an originalist, or otherwise endorses the Constitution as a "charter of negative liberties," though he explicitly recognizes that this is how the Constitution has been interpreted since the Founding. Rather, he seems to think that focusing on litigation distracts liberal activists from necessary political organizing, and that any radical victories they might manage to win from the courts would be unstable because those decisions wouldn't have public backing. The way to change judicial decisions, according to Obama, is to change the underlying political and social dynamics; changes in the law primarily follow changes in society, not vice versa. Again, he's channeling Rosenberg and Klarman. And this attitude on Obama's part shouldn't be surprising, given that he decided to go into politics rather than become a full-time University of Chicago constitutional law professor, as he was offered. Had he been committed to the idea that courts are at the forefront of social change, he would have been inclined to take a potentially very influential position at Chicago. (And judging from this interview, he would likely have been a great con law professor, both as a teacher and scholar, and, had he been so inclined, legal activist.)
All that said, there is no doubt from the interview that he supports "redistributive change," a phrase he uses at approximately the 41.20 mark in a context that makes it clear that he is endorsing the redistribution of wealth by the government through the political process.
What I don't understand is why this is surprising, or interesting enough to be headlining Drudge [UPDATE: Beyond the fact that Drudge's headline suggests, wrongly, that Obama states that the Supreme Court should have ordered the redistribution of income; as Orin says, his views on the subject, beyond that it was an error to promote this agenda in historical context, are unclear.]. At least since the passage of the first peacetime federal income tax law about 120 years ago, redistribution of wealth has been a (maybe the) primary item on the left populist/progressive/liberal agenda, and has been implicitly accepted to some extent by all but the most libertarian Republicans as well. Barack Obama is undoubtedly liberal, and his background is in political community organizing in poor communities. Is it supposed to be a great revelation that Obama would like to see wealth more "fairly" distributed than it is currently?
It's true that most Americans, when asked by pollsters, think that it's emphatically not the government's job to redistribute wealth. But are people so stupid as to not recognize that when politicians talk about a "right to health care," or "equalizing educational opportunities," or "making the rich pay a fair share of taxes," or "ensuring that all Americans have the means to go to college," and so forth and so on, that they are advocating the redistribution of wealth? Is it okay for a politician to talk about the redistribution of wealth only so long as you don't actually use phrases such as "redistribution" or "spreading the wealth," in which case he suddenly becomes "socialist"? If so, then American political discourse, which I never thought to be especially elevated, is in even a worse state than I thought.
UPDATE: At Overlaywered, Walter Olson and Ted Frank (in the comments) talk about how all this might impact Obama judicial nominations. There are two basic possibilities. One is that Obama might believe that appointing far left Justices to the Court would be unlikely to accomplish much in the long-term, and could ultimately harm the progressive agenda, and his own presidency, by reviving "unelected judges imposing their will on the American people" as a Republican campaign theme. The other possibility is that Obama, intoxicated by victory, and having the very healthy ego that all successful politicians have, will decide that the election of a very liberal African-American president, along with large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, signals that the social and political winds have shifted sufficiently that the Supreme Court could successfully launch an activist liberal agenda, and he will nominate justices accordingly. But there is nothing in either Obama's radio remarks, his voting record in the Senate, or his public statements on judges to suggest that he objects in principle to the equalitarian "living Constitution" of Brennan, Warren, et al., and there is much to the contrary.
FURTHER UPDATE: Obama advisor Cass Sunstein tells Politico's Ben Smith that Obama wasn't referring to redistribution of wealth in general,but "to the narrower forms of redistribution -- education, legal filing fees, legal representation, and other issues --that had been discussed in the case Obama cited and in discussions around it.
That's very hard to swallow, if one looks at the transcript.
If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I'd be okay.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
Later, a caller asks, "is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?"
Obama responds, "You know, I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts."
Related Posts (on one page):
- Obama on Redistribution of Wealth:
- Obama on the Warren Court:
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It's not. It's political theater, See also "Spread the wealth." It's an accurate indication, being blown out of proportion by partisans. Elections are won and lost on emotions, not on facts. See the voters interviewed by Howard Stern.
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Very nice summary of the audio recording, thank you very much for the effort.
But there are practical and philosophical differences between taxing Peter more heavily than Paul to pay for shared public services and taxing Peter to subsidize Paul directly with the goal of equalizing their after tax incomes. So one issue is whether or not Paul remains a taxpayer or becomes a net recipient of government funding. And another issue is the goal -- is it to provide for public services? Or is it to redistribute between Peter and Paul with the public services a secondary concern? Americans, I think, are opposed to citizens above the poverty line becoming net recipients and they are opposed to policies whose main (not secondary) goal is redistribution -- with the obvious exception of safety net programs.
Sure, if you want include all degrees of wealth redistribution all the way from means-testing for college grants all the way to consitutionally mandating a minimum income, then EVERYBODY's for it.
Now, I'm waiting for Anti-Abortionists to 'prove' that EVERYONE is pro-life in some way or another using the same method and the same standards.
Defocusing a term in order to minimize its impact is sophistry and nothing more.
There is a fine line between advocating a level playing field, and expressing discomfort with cartel-like behavior from societal elites, and advocating redistribution of wealth.
Does one want a government passively checking excesses on the part of a minority, or a government actively becoming The One True Business?
Something the media is supposed to do is expose the truth without spin. In this election, Obama's spin has not merely been unhindered, but faithfully transmitted by the media very nearly 100%.
It's so bad hard fair questions are called tendentious by people who must really know better.
It's surprising because the truth about Obama is swathed in sugar by the media so the feces is acceptable sounding to the masses. This interview and his overly forthcoming response to Joe the Plumber is the straight poop. Doesn't taste so good, it's a shock.
People who've paid attention aren't too surprised.
Of course, I hear Democrat and I assume support for increased socialism until proven otherwise.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
(1) Political discourse seems to be all about distorting the meanings of words and accusing the other side of doing so. This shouldn't be surprising.
(2) As Ilya's noted before, it takes more time and brain power than most people have to think substantively about everything politicians say and to gather enough information to hold truly informed opinions about most of this stuff.
(3) Broad cynical platitudes aside, as you note, I think most people are ok with the general ideas that (a) wealthier people should pay more taxes (both relative and absolute) than less wealthy, and (b) that there should be some minimal form of welfare for people who can't meet their basic needs. Republicans' and Democrats' differences are a matter of degree. To be opposed to "redistribution" in principle, one would either have to oppose taxes entirely or favor only benefits that are given out in accordance with how much taxes are paid in. No one in the political mainstream will admit to holding that opinion, afaik.
(4) "Redistribution of wealth" has this strange visceral connotation to it, as though the government takes everyone's money away and then gives it back to people according to arbitrary criteria that may have little or nothing to do with how much people earned in the first place. It sounds like shuffling cards and has the feel of being antithetical to the idea that people have "earned" any of their income. It might mean the same thing as raising taxes on the wealthier and raising benefits for the less wealthy, but it sounds different, and when people as polished as Obama use different-sounding terms, they often mean something different.
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No. It is not supposed to do that. The listener is supposed to THINK. The outcome of what you propose is that the listener will believe objective reality based on a report. Blind trust opens readers to gross and rank manipulation.
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It's a testimony to the media's persistent self-promotion as being a purveyor of truth, champion of accuracy, and effective bastion against encroachment of government on individual liberty.
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Media is comprised largely of people who fancy themselves elite and educated. They look down on the public - and deservedly so, because they can see they are able to FORM and TRANSFORM public thought via rank manipulation, even with falsehood.
Although it is tempting to answer this rhetorical question with a “yes,” it seems to me that there is a difference between the policies you identify and “redistribution of wealth.” One can believe that the government ought to provide certain services to the public, either because everyone has a “right” to education, health care, etc. or because the public as a whole is benefited by everyone having a minimal level of education and health care, without believing that equality of wealth per se is a legitimate aim of the government. No doubt the distinction can be blurred in application, which is why someone who advocates redistribution of wealth could be a particularly dangerous steward of the welfare state.
That a particular word -- redistribution -- has negative connotations to many doesn't change the fact that stable majorities support redistributive policies and, at the moment, a majority supports expanding them.
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I doubt the majority grasps the principle that money doesn't grow on trees. That old saw about two wolves and one sheep voting on who is going to pay for lunch comes to mind. Once a majority figures out it can vote largess for itself from the public treasury and all that
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I think the majority-endorsed government redistribution and promises for future payouts have gone too far already, and that there will be a day of painful financial reckoning is in the future.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
Even without recourse to such fuzzy as fairness or reasonableness, a progressive tax makes sense from a purely utilitarian point of view. Since the marginal value of the dollar is diminishing with increasing wealth, the optimal distribution of the tax burden is necessarily not in proportion to wealth.
How these relatively uncontroversial ideas became branded with the wholly-different (and pernicious) concept of redistribution of wealth is really beyond me.
I hate to say it, but as a thesis adviser of mine once posited, popular American discourse has become (if it were ever more than) trading caricatures of one's opposing viewpoints. Political argument in the general public sphere boils down to little more than reducing the opposing sides' arguments into overly-simplistic slogans and boiler-plate language against which it is relatively easy to argue. Rather than try to tackle the opposing sides' strongest arguments in an attempt to engage in deeply critical discussion (what my adviser called the "charity principle"), voters (and clearly the media, on both sides) create distractions in the form of overly-simplified arguments and then attack those distractions.
I wish I had something other than anecdotal evidence to offer for this assertion, but sitting in a restaurant, airport, bar, or many undergraduate classrooms provides a tenable measure (prima facie anyway).
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The level of controversy is in proportion to the degree. At the absurd extreme, taxing and redistributing to result in complete equality in personal wealth, personal incentive is stifled, and the "size of the pie" is diminished.
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That this is controversial today, for real, is an indication that a significant amount of personal incentive to produce and perform is being wasted, either by subsidizing laziness, or by taking an incremental dollar that becomes not worth the effort to produce.
Obviously, especially if it's a Republican.
Last Spring the government, at Bush's behest, sent checks for $600 to everyone making less than $75,000. As far as spreading the wealth goes, it doesn't get more blatant than that.
Did a single person here accuse Bush of socialism?
Like when Couric asked Palin if she disagreed with any Supreme Court case besides Roe (and she couldn't name one)?
I will. I am shocked at some of the policies of the Bush Administration. Not just the 'stimulus' checks, but the Bank Bailout, and other big gov't policies. This is one of the reasons I am no longer a Repulican. The Republicans are now Democrats and the Democrats are now Socialists (Communists, my Dad would say).
As I think about the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Axis, I wonder about the future of this country. Not so bright as it used to be. Redistributive economic policies tend to burden and shrink economies, and the middle and lower income people suffer the greatest. The winners are the policial class. I wonder when the strong / productive will have had enough and start acting.
When wealth becomes a static thing that you have (or not), rather than a thing you acquire gradually through your own efforts, the way people see it changes. Governments have been known to resort to deliberate confiscation in order to break up large holdings and hereditary class privileges.
There's a simple solution outside government, though. If companies paid their workers better and their CEOs considerably worse, there would be less political pressure for redistribution through the state. Members of the executive class should keep this in mind.
Because most folks do not pay close attention to politics and the Dem media is intentionally not reporting on Obama's rather radical history, far too many ignorant voters actually believe Obama's bad faced lies that he will cut taxes for nearly everyone and pay for a trillion dollars in new spending through budget cuts as though her were some modern conservative combination of Reagan and Gingrich.
Break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constituion"???
Dear God, help us all.
I think there's a big difference between having a public policy goal -- "education for all" -- that requires public expenditures (i.e. a redistribution of wealth) and having redistribution AS a public policy goal. Most conventional liberals have specific public policy goals in mind that require redistribution, but do not believe that taking from A and giving to B for its own sake is a virtue. Obama does.
Obama's political philosophy is expressly neomarxist in origin. I would not be surprised to see Obama take some of the steps taken by rulers such as Putin, Chavez, and Mugabe to aggregate greater and greater power to the federal government and away from the private sector (and his political opponents). [To be clear, I am not suggesting that Obama would use violence, as many of the foregoing rulers have done. Obama doesn't strike me as a violent guy.]
I see signs of that already through the nationalized health care that his people are putting together with Kennedy, the 401(k) nationalization plan that's being developed in Congress, the public advocacy by various liberals for a nationalization of the banks, the card check legislation, and so forth. He will also use the organs of government to silence dissent, such as through the implementation of the Fairness Doctrine and an aggressive use of the FBI and/or civil litigation to silence opponents. You have already seen examples of the latter: Obama's campaign has requested roughly 3-4 FBI investigations into Republicans who had the temerity to disagree with him.
I do wish Obama would stop citing NeoMarx in his speeches.
More realistically, many Americans don't mind some effort to help the deserving poor (and distinguish them from the lazy and addicted poor), but (to the extent that the masses think about this at all), they regard this as an duty of a Christian commonwealth to provide for the necessities of life--not as a general principle that everyone deserves an equal slice of the pie.
If McCain wanted to win the election they would be running with this clip, very aggressively. But McCain would rather lose like a gentleman, rather than expose Obama's Marxism.
Nevermind me, I'm suffering from IBS (I Become Sarcastro).
I believe it was actually "individuals making less than $75,000" or "households making less than $150,000". So if you and your wife combined made less than $150k, you probably got a check.
Same difference...
Well taken, cboldt. Given where we are right now in terms of income inequality and asset inequality (which are two separate animals), I don't think we are anywhere near the level of progressive taxation that qualifies as bona fide redistribution.
Clayton, it is interesting that you would bring up the distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, a sentiment that I share. We should be targeting our anti-poverty efforts at education/opportunity for those that show a strong motivation to succeed.
That said, given your political background, it is hard to cast you in the role of sincere reformer of a system that you seem think ought to be abolished outright. I'm not doubting your sincerity (because I personally know you to be thoughtful) but hopefully you can understand why proponents of a system are wary of accepting this criticism at face value.
Also, I got a check for only $285. Bush is not only a socialist, he's a cheap bastard of a socialist.
There's a shocker.
'A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.' - George Bernard Shaw
p.s. anyone know why Shaw would say such a thing? He was quite the Socialist.
Is this a joke?
Among the biggest intellectual influences we can identify in Barack Obama's life include Saul Alinsky and Jeremiah Wright. They're about as neomarxist as they come.
No, it's an attempt to change reality through rhetorical definition-shifting. See my comments earlier in the thread for an explanation of what he's trying to accomplish, and how.
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The label, "redistribution" is just a label. Like all other labels, it comes with a certain amount of emotional power.
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I expressed above my opinion that I think the federal government is involved in manipulation (or micromanagement) of the present and future economy to an extent that will result in painful financial correction at best, and the imposition of even more strident regulation most probably. Progressive income tax is but one of many government activities that are redistributionist (money transfer without regard to having "earned" or created proportionate value) in nature.
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And the majority of people will cheer for the increased government intervention. The natural follow on to majority rule democracy is benevolent dictatorship. Obviously, neither of those will exist in a "pure" form; my point of view is a balance between self-determination and activities that are mandated or forbidden by the government.
Social Security was conceived as a 'pension insurance' program. Higher earners alway have higher pensions. This is but one reason to work hard to move up the income laddder.
Would you have our Gov't remove any and every incentive to work hard? Would you have the SS system become one more welfare inititive.
Its not emotional when the money you worked and sacrified to make is being taken away to give to another person (who did NOT earn it) in the name of 'fairness' and 'neighborliness' and 'patriotism'.
We are not now talking about keeping people from starving in the streets. We are talking about taking $$$ from the earner and giving to the non-earner to 'even things out a bit'.
I was a Boy Scout for several years a decade ago. This means I follow Baden Powell's teachings to a T! I mean, I learned his methods, so I must agree with his philosophies! That's why I plan to go fight in the Boer Wars.
And Obama clearly gets along super well with that Wright guy! I think they're such good buds because of how similar their philosophies are.
HUGE Intellectual influence from those two! Cause Obama is such a follower and can't come up with a philosophy on his own!
But I have an honest question: Do we not currently have a progressive tax system -- one in which posters on the site may oppose as a general matter, but the Republican party accepts as a practical matter?
Doesn't the dispute between Obama and McCain honestly boil down to questions, for example, of whether we're going to tax the top bracket at 39% (as in those hard-hitting, socialist days of the 1990s), or at the current 35%?
I can appreciate the arguments for or against raising the rate. I can even see Joe the Plumber's point, even if he was totally off base from his own personal tax standpoint. But ultimately, being taxed at 35 or 39%, while others are taxed at lower rates, is redistribution of wealth. Funny, that was what we were doing for 6 years during a Republican presidential administration with a Republican-controlled Congress and I never heard "socialism!!"
I suppose the point of discussing the audio clip was more about Obama's view of the courts' role in further extending our nation's socialistic tendencies. I don't know what to say. Those in this country and who read this blog are going to find what they want to find out of the audio.
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That seems to be a point where the reaction becomes emotional! Rightfully so, IMO. My comment was just that the label "redistribution," is vague, and tends to take on a range of meanings depending on what the listener wants to hear. If the degree of redistribution was reasonable in your mind, then you'd have a different reaction to the word.
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Moving away from the emotional, a thinking rational person that has a normal "human nature" will reduce his or her production when "too much" (a personal decision) is taken away. Why work for it when you can get it for free? I'm confident in predicting that you and I share the belief that the current level of government involvement will not maximize aggregate social (sense of personal responsibility) and financial wealth; and that the proposed policies of the Democrats are more destructive to a strong, proud and durable society than the policies proposed by the Republicans.
Key will be defense. Hussein will ground (and scrap) most of the bomber fleets and reduce the carrier groups to 4 or 5, scrapping rather than mothballing the decommissioned ships.
In response to Abu Graib, all ground units will have political offers who share command responsibilities. The "savings" will be redistributed.
I also see a key redistribution target as being major cities, especially those with minority populations that delivered 110% of their votes to Hussein. Detroit, Oakland, New Orleans, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Newark will receive so much "redistributed wealth" as to satisfy crooked politicians, and even folks like Kwame Kilpatrick, Charlie Rangel and Alcee Hastings AND their friends and families.
Might I suggest a contest? What will be some of the euphemisms (leftist are always clever with a phrase) that Hussein's government will use to label it's rape and pillage of America's middle class?
In an effort to confound the positions of the libertarian/statis spectrum, you're also ignoring the "Equality of Oppurtunity" versus "Equality of Outcome" dynamic...
You realize that every dollar taken from the private economy slows down economic growth and development and prevents the private economy from creating wealth, don't you? Do you realize that the private economy is the only entity that can effectively create wealth? That government can't effectively create wealth? (In this context I'm talking about "wealth" on a societal scale, but the beauty of capitalism and markets is that it creates both societal and individual wealth at the same time.)
So if you're an economy that is in a recession or depression the worst - absolutely worst - thing you can do is to increase taxes to take more money from the private economy, since it slows down or even prevents the private economy from workings its way through and growing out of a recession or depression. Now by extension do you realize that the policies that are being proposed are the absolutely worst things to do to an economy that is in a recession or depression?
FDR would like a word with you.
True, but I don't recall the republican's saying that those folks in that bracket weren't paying their fair share and pushing for a higher rate.
His comments on captital gains taxes are a window into his thought process: he doesn't care that higher capital gains taxes will not result in higher revenue It's "fairer." End of story. Put another, it is more important to close the gap between the rich and everyone else than it is to raise revenue to pay for programs.
You can argue that this is what sets OHB apart. The progressive tax system has historically been viewed a a "fairer" way to raise revenue, not as a way of promoting "fairness" in and of itself.
I disagree.
A non-trivial portion of government spending items can quite accurately be described as "enablers." Sure, a tax dollar taken out of the economy is one less tax dollar the economy has generated, but if that tax dollar goes to the police to pay them to provide for a safe and secure environment for businesses to operate, the gain by allowing business to grow more effectively is larger than the cost to the economy of paying for it. How effectively would the US economy have been able to grow if governments didn't provide police, or build roads, or provide for a court system to settle commercial disputes, etc etc.
There's tons of arguments as to degree and efficiency and nature of this benefit. But arguing taxation is uniformly bad without even considering utility is simply an incomplete argument.
As a former Boy Scout, I have to say that a portion of my worldview has been heavily influenced by Scouting. Probably a large part of my sense of civic and social responsibility.
We are all a product, one way or another, of the influences on our lives.
Now being a student of a particular philosophy does not necessarily make you an adherent. You might study up on it and turn against it, for instance.
You'd have to correlate the student with his/her later writings and perhaps voting record if applicable to know how a given philosophy influenced that person.
Method is not the same as philosophy.]
"He means our workforce." - Palin
People, we must be vigilant.
Sarah Palin says she reads whatever is in front of her - so I wonder if someone put a copy of Das Kapital on her desk!
Valuating the economy in terms of the quality of the labor force is classic Marxism. Marxist Labor Theory of Value.
Yes, David, they people are that stupid. And people need to have it pointed out to them in black and white that, YES, Obama bluntly favors a strict socialist policy of the redistribution of wealth. The next thing they'll need to have pointed out to them bluntly is that strict socialism can be enforced only with totalitarianism.
Saw a program about grifting and human psychological foibles a few months back. If given two situations of 1) you are just told you can gamble and win $40, and 2) You are given $40 and then taken back and you are told you can win it back, you will be twice as likely to engage in the gambling game.
We are wired to want to recover something that we consider to have been ours whether it objectively is or not. Framing thinks so the person thinks of it as a 'loss of mine' issue is a pretty basic propaganda technique.
Then simple utilitarianism (the diminishing marginal utility of the dollars) dictates the redistribution-ism (at least in the overly broad sense you've defined it) is the optimal tax policy.
That isn't working in this cycle. People are actually challenging the concept of socialism as boogeyman. When the Republicans are nationalizing the banking system, their accusations of socialism ring hollow.
The interesting thing is that everyone has their own different lists of frivolous expenditures. Perhaps if we could all agree on the useless parts of the budget, they would be easier to trim. Many on the right refuse to cut military funding or drug enforcement for any reason. Many on the left won't let you touch environmental or consumer protection. Large proportions of Americans are very opposed to touching social security or medicare.
You make it sound as if there are these obvious wastes that everyone agrees can be cut. . .
And The Economist.
Of course you're allowed to say it, but I hope it doesn't come to pass. An easier way to make it happen at a personal level is to simply move to one of those idyllic countries.
If we wanted to be like the Europeans, why step foot on the Mayflower to begin with?
At the time the Mayflower sailed, almost all of Europe was ruled by Kings. Comparisons of that time to modern-day Europe (which owes much of its evolution to our positive influence) is disingenuous.
It is entirely possible that Americans are not infants, and realize that when they are taxed, their money is frequently given to someone who doesn't make as much as they do. Since we've had an income tax in this country for the better part of a hundred years now, this really should come as no surprise. The question is not whether there should or shouldn't be redistribution of income; the question is how much there should be. Only on the right can you equate taxation with socialism and get away with it, but as polls are demonstrating, such simple-minded attacks are having trouble gaining any traction this year.
It all depends on the audience. The Obama campaign has gone out of its way to downplay his ideas about redistribution. They know people don't like to hear it in plain words, so they try to say he means tax relief, health care, or daycare. Have you heard him advocate for "redistribution" or "reparations" in the campaign?
So, it is a revelation to many who don't track the campaign and policies advcated by each candidate. Consider the impact of his comment about "spreading the wealth around." One could also ask if that was a revelation. It wasn't to the 5% who avidly follows such things, and but it was to the lumpen, and they have the votes.
... And Charlie: I now see the light! Obama is Satan! God loves web trolls!
But, in the past we have agreed to be taxed to support true public goods (roads, police, military, etc), and to keep people from starving in the streets. What Obama is proposing is new - increased taxation to 'even out people's income' - That Person A has more than Person B is inherently unfair (says Obama), and this needs to be rectified by taking more money away from Person A and giving to Person B - its only neighborly, you know.
Of course, we don't need to bother ourselves with wondering why one has more than the other, do we? Perhaps Person A is older, established and has worked hard and scarified their whole lives to arrive at this point. Perhaps Person B is very young and just getting started. Wouldn’t it be natural then for Person A to have more at that point in time? Or maybe Person B lived foolishly or erratically and is paying the price. Or maybe Person B just decided to choose leisure over labor - their choice, you know. But now it is UNFAIR that Person B doesn't have as much. So, the only good thing for society to do is storm Person A's property and take it, and give it to Person B to Make Things Fair.
In attempting to 'fix injustices', Obama will create new and more profound injustice. And disincentives to be productive. This is why it is said that Socialism brings suffering to a higher level.
To be fair (and I'm right there with you in criticizing Bush as squishy on economic policy), the administration pushed for the checks to be tax rebates. Only after the Democrats got done with it did it include credits ($300) for tax filers who paid no taxes (i.e., it became a handout).
FDR would like a word with you.
If you have a time machine, set it up. I'll slap the prissy cigarette holder out of his mouth, because his policies are thought to have prolonged the Great Depression by seven years according to a recent study by UCLA economists. And those are conventional academic economists, those in the Austrian School have known this for a long time.
Hat tip to Christopher Manion at the lewrockwell.com blog.
I appreciate your point, and I think our differences demonstrate the real differences between the candidates once you wash away all the extreme rhetoric. I don't want to speak for you, but I feel it boils down to the question of how much (more) the higher income earners will pay. I see no problem with going from the 35 to 39 % bracket (on the final portion of my income -- not on all of it). And I'm guessing you differ, at least as to capital gains, because you argue they won't raise more revenue for the government (i.e., they will stymie investment and growth).
Again, I appreciate your point and your tone, but I just don't think I agree. I don't think the last eight years have shown that the higher rates of the Clinton years stymied growth. Let me please say I understand the current crisis is the result of a wide variety of factors -- some of which may be placed by history's review on Clinton's doorstep. But I do think we were better off even when the richest Americans paid slightly more in taxes.
Just the way I feel. You feel differently. I respect your opinion.
But it wasn't just Mayflower passengers that came here to escape Europe. People have been emigrating here constantly since then. They have come here to take part in our economic prosperity and our freedom. I suppose taking that all away might put a damper on legal immigration and maybe solve our illegal immigration issues...
My question is...where do the misfits of the 21st Century emigrate to? Where is our New World? With nowhere to move to, the disaffected have no outlet.
And so what if they don't have Kings anymore...tyranny by legislature is just as heinous.
And what is the maximum percentage of your income that will finally be too much? As long as there is a source of money (your money in this case), there will always be a need for it. And that need will grow and grow. Private property will cease to have any meaning.
You say it can't happen? Who would have imagined when the income tax was instituted that we'd be paying what we pay now? No one would have believed you if you'd predicted the current tax levels. They'd have said, "no one would stand for that! NO way!"
Laffer is right, though. Increased taxation will lead to lower tax receipts. Everybody will be poorer. But Obama doesn't care. He is just interested in 'Fairness' even if tax receipts decline. He stated this position in a televised debate with Hillary.
Even if that were the case, WW-2 would seem to be a great example of Government created wealth.]
Totally, making a bunch of machines in the US specifically designed to destroy factories and infrastructure in Europe and Japanese-occupied Asia was an excellent example of government-created wealth, just like (on a much smaller scale) building prisons to house those convicted in the war on drugs is another excellent example of government created wealth.
Or when he was a crazy Christian black nationalist who was going to enslave white people as retribution.
We spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Unless we think the whole world is trying to kill us, it's very hard to think of this as rational. And even then, it's hard.
Hmm, let's see. So if taxes go up a little for some people, that will lead to a situation where "private property will cease to have any meaning." But if Bush starts snooping on people, and eroding my civil liberties, folks here would mock anyone who raised a concern that 'civil liberties will cease to have any meaning.'
Got it.
You're absolutely right, that government has the power to create phony wealth by wasting money on dumb things. But when government puts money where it's needed, like into infrastructure, education and health, this does in fact have the potential to enhance everyone's wealth.
Even if that were the case, WW-2 would seem to be a great example of Government created wealth
Your argument is along the lines of the "broken window fallacy". What you're not seeing is what could have been produced if the money had been left in the private economy, if the currency had not been debased, etc. Bastiat exposed this fallacy in his essay "That Which is Seen and that Which is Unseen", see a discussion of this here.
Sure, a tax dollar taken out of the economy is one less tax dollar the economy has generated, but if that tax dollar goes to the police to pay them to provide for a safe and secure environment for businesses to operate, the gain by allowing business to grow more effectively is larger than the cost to the economy of paying for it.
The amount of taxes actually needed for "essential services" like police, fire, EMS, courts, etc. is actually pretty low. The problem is that every dollar above that is being taken from the private economy and actually making society as a whole poorer. If this money were left in the private economy it would be invested and increase production, increase employment, improve the standard of living, etc. making society as a whole richer.
There's tons of arguments as to degree and efficiency and nature of this benefit. But arguing taxation is uniformly bad without even considering utility is simply an incomplete argument.
Basically it's a continuum. Taxation above that necessary for essential services takes from the private economy and essentially makes society poorer as a whole. This occurs the more taxes are raised. As this progesses you wind up with socialist/communist states with stagnating/declining economies, stagnating/declining standards of living, in many cases starvation, etc.
It's not clear that all those areas need more funding. Education is over funded for example. Remember an investment in one area means less or no investment in another area. Perhaps we need investment in coal-to-liquid fuel conversion plants near the coasts rather than more roads in the interior of the country. The problem with letting the government make capital allocations decisions is that they usually do it on a political basis, not an economic one.
What make you think you know where more investment is needed?
Good times.... /nostalgic sigh.
..goes up for a few people. Do you mean that if the Government only abuses a few people, then its OK?
And those few people would be the productive, by the way. The people who invest capital and who create jobs. Also, you're fooling yourself if you believe that only those with incomes of $250,000 and above will see an increase in taxes. Obama cannot keep his promises and also raise taxes on only a few people. I believe Bill Clinton made a similar promise, but after elected increased taxes on incomes below $50,000.
I believe Gov't has already proved its insatiable appetite for the income and wealth of the people.
Did you know Congress is scheduling hearings to 'nationalize' 401-K and similar retirement plans. Oh, yes. Hard to believe they'll actually do this, but you KNOW they want their hands on this money. Of course they do.
"Nationalize" is my characterization (they will discuss ending the tax deducction, and require you to put 5% of you income into a new plan (Social Security 2.0), and pay you 3% annual interest, plus $600/yr matching. Where is interest and matching coming from? Your income of course). But you should go read the reports yourself. Like Social Security, you know they will spend the money, and then leave us with an IOU. And how long would it be before people were complaining that the rich (ie those who contributed the most) were geting the most benefit from Social Security 2.0, and how unfair is THAT?.
The Greedy Hand the Government.
Let me take your paragraphs one by one:
"And what is the maximum percentage of your income that will finally be too much? As long as there is a source of money (your money in this case), there will always be a need for it. And that need will grow and grow. Private property will cease to have any meaning."
I think that, as a global matter, you're delving into a little hyperbole here. The point is, during Clinton, we had this higher rate on the upper bracket. We prospered and private property seemed to do just fine. I'm willing to concede there could be more to the cause of the propserity than just presidential politics, but I think we avoided the mass hysteria, cats-and-dogs-sleeping-together scenario you envision.
"You say it can't happen? Who would have imagined when the income tax was instituted that we'd be paying what we pay now? No one would have believed you if you'd predicted the current tax levels. They'd have said, "no one would stand for that! NO way!" "
Well, I'd counter that no one would have imagined the social services we have now when the tax was instituted. I'll leave the libertarian argument about whether that's a good thing aside for a moment. But it is undisputed the government provides a great deal that the populace wants and thus requires increased revenue to fund it. Which always leads to the split-personality polling you see when people, responding the the very same poll, answer that they want their taxes to go down, but also answer (to another query) that they want more services.
"Laffer is right, though. Increased taxation will lead to lower tax receipts. Everybody will be poorer. But Obama doesn't care. He is just interested in 'Fairness' even if tax receipts decline. He stated this position in a televised debate with Hillary."
I just don't think that's right. In 2005, the non-partisan congressional budget office issued a study questioning the validity of the notion that raises in taxes definitively causes lower government revenue: http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6908/ 12-01-10PercentTaxCut.pdf.
Since we've had an income tax in this country for the better part of a hundred years now, this really should come as no surprise. The question is not whether there should or shouldn't be redistribution of income; the question is how much there should be. Only on the right can you equate taxation with socialism and get away with it, but as polls are demonstrating, such simple-minded attacks are having trouble gaining any traction this year.
The problem is one of economic ignorance. Many on the left and right do not understand that the economy is not a zero-sum game. The rich (with some exceptions) are not rich at the expense of the poor. The rich, because they have more investible capital, provide the capital stock which is the engine which creates societal wealth. Deplete it and you make society poorer as a whole. Understanding of this quote from Mises is what is lacking:
It is not easy to explain this state of affairs to people misled by the passionate anti-capitalistic agitation. As the self-styled intellectuals see it, the capitalist system and the greed of the businessmen are to blame for the fact that the total sum of products turned out for consumption is not greater than it actually is. The only way to do away with poverty they know is to take away — by means of progressive taxation — as much as possible from the well-to-do. In their eyes the wealth of the rich is the cause of the poverty of the poor. In accordance with this idea the fiscal policies of all nations and especially also of the United States were in the last decades directed toward confiscating ever-increasing portions of the wealth and income of the higher brackets. The greater part of the funds thus collected would have been employed by the taxpayers for saving and additional capital accumulation. Their investment would have increased productivity per man-hour and would in this way have provided more goods for consumption. It would have raised the average standard of living of the common man. If the government spends them for current expenditure, they are dissipated and capital accumulation is concomitantly slowed down.
If you don't understand this dynamic you will always raise taxes to "get the rich" and slow down or stop economic growth, lower standards of living, and make society poorer. You will always be eating next year's seed corn and wondering why you have less each time.
Yes, yes, and you're right.
I admittedly agree with you only rarely, so I'm sure this will be taken with a grain of salt, but I think you're misinterpreting Sunstein. (To be fair, I suspect Politico is, too.) I think the only way to understand what Sunstein was trying to say is that, to the extent Obama's comments from the transcript can be understood to be endorsing the recognition of economic rights by the courts, he is endorsing only a limited set of rights that can feasibly be implemented - e.g., education, filing fees, and so on. That is why he spends a lot of time during the conversation discussing the difficulties of implementation of equal funding for the schools.
I mentioned in one of the other threads that I think the entire conversation has to be viewed in the context of the University of Chicago Law School in the late 90s/early 00s, a time when the work of Sunstein and Stephen Holmes (and others) on the cost of rights thesis was especially influential. In that light, Obama's comments are quite moderate - even conservative - and of course Sunstein's arguments have been broadly accepted, at least on pragmatic grounds.
Wow. You know, there are two sides of the Laffer curve -- we might be to the left of the peak where increased taxation leads to increased revenue. Surely raising taxes from 0% to 1% will increase tax receipts.
That depends on what the government spends the money on and whether the private market would provide those goods more or less efficiently (or not at all). The free market tends to function very poorly in some instances (for instance, in the provision of services that are natural monopolies) and very well in others (anything with low entry barriers). Deciding which is which is not as trivial as you claim.
Government can operate competently, or it can operate incompetently. When we put government in the hands of people who are generally opposed to the very idea of government, we tend to get the latter.
And the problem with letting the market be in control of all capital allocation decisions is that the market has a certain tendency, when left completely to its own devices, to do things which are good for a very small number of people, at the expense of everyone else. Which ends up leading to bad results for everyone, in the long run.
And certain kinds of investments, like transportation, need to be conceived on a national basis, at least to some extent, or else we end up with a great deal of redundancy and inefficiency. As Oren pointed out, some markets are natural monopolies, and problems result when a natural monopoly is placed in private hands.
And the idea that large corporate institutions are inherently cleaner and more efficient than large government institutions is fiction. Something I can report after a great deal of personal involvement and observation.
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jane:
I didn't change the subject. I used an analogy to prove that you don't have a good argument. And since you don't have a good argument, you're refusing to deal with the analogy.
If you think that taxation is form of abuse, then you think that the idea of government is a form of abuse. It's true that government is abusive, but it's less abusive than any other idea we've been able to come up with. Kind of like democracy; it's a rotten system, but it still beats whatever's in second place.
You're fooling yourself if you think we can get out of the hole that Bush left us in without raising taxes. And part of the way you fool yourself is thinking that Bush cut taxes. He didn't. He just shifted them to a group that's not in a position to protest: our kids.
Simple question: if lower taxes are always good, then why not just have no taxes at all? What level of taxation do you claim is appropriate? Zero? And if not zero, then what is your basis to claim that the level you propose is inherently more rational than any other plan, like, say, Obama's?