What is Wrong With "Spreading the Wealth?"
I came across this at Huffpo:
Mr. McCain's advisers said that in his speeches, television advertisements and mailings, he would seize on a remark Mr. Obama made in an encounter with an Ohio voter, Joe Wurzelbacher, who had pressed him to explain his support for a tax increase for upper-income filers. Mr. Obama responded by saying he wanted to "spread the wealth." Mr. McCain repeatedly invoked that encounter with the man, whom he called "Joe the Plumber," during the debate on Wednesday.
"Spread the wealth around: We will focus acutely on that," said Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain's chief strategist. "Spread the wealth around is a big mistake."
My question: What is wrong with Spreading the Wealth? It rings so much better than "Trickle Down," which republicans have no embarrassment about, even though the wealth has done nothing more than trickle up. Since so many of them don't believe in Evolution, maybe they don't believe in Gravity either.
Spreading the wealth is what keeps rice in every bowl, and milk in every glass. That keeps Dairies in business, and rice brokers, that keeps Dairy farmers in business, and rice growers, and Dairy workers and rice workers and pretty soon you have a WHOLE ECONOMY just buzzing along.
What do you have when a few old misers like Jacob Marley have all the coin stacked up in counting rooms? Empty rice bowls, and empty glasses.
October 17, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and $2000 shower curtains. Fact is, the movers and shakers of the early part of the last century actually DID spread the wealth. They built factories and therefore jobs. Those jobs allowed people to own their own homes and purchase furniture that was built in other factories by people with jobs. And those guys building the factories and railroads, etc were plenty rich; they had more than they needed, but their workers also got what THEY needed, including good and inexpensive health care.
The new movers and shakers just buy out other companies and lay off workers; they don't build ANYTHING but a power base for themselves. Who in this world can get a golden parachute of $400 million dollars and begrudge paying taxes on it? Could they live long enough to even spend it all?
Yeah -- spreading the wealth sounds good to these ears!
October 17, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Yeah -- spreading the wealth sounds good to these ears!"
Unless of course it's your wealth. Then your opinion would change.
October 17, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally wrong. Wealth is not created by taxation, nor are good produced by taxation. Who in your example produced the milk, the rice, or the bowl? The gov't. ? You view wealth as a zero sum game, and want to spread it around. Typical of liberals like Obama. Wealth is created, by combining labor and capital. If I make more that does not mean you have less. Actually it is more likely that you will have more also, since I will demand more goods and services and the economy will expand.
October 17, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
For me true wealth is not capital, but labor. Labor builds wealth not the other way around. Its not a chicken or egg paradox-labor is logically prior to capital.
The system we have now is so inequitable it makes the teeth ache. How can someone labor in a chemical factory, exposed to fumes that shorten her lifespan, and be paid 500 times less per hour of her precious and only life than the "wealth-creating" oligarch who owns the factory.
If Obama wants to spread the wealth, more power to him. And he shouldn't apologize for it.
October 17, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You liberals are clueless when it comes to economics. Wealth is not spread around, it is created, by economic activity. In your example, why should the factory owner own a factory at all, if he does not make a sizeable gain on his investment? Why take the risk? Why not just put the money in the bank? Why is the worker making so much less? Because she is taking no financial risk. Why do most people not get rich? Because they don't try to. They don't start a business of their own, they work for someone else. It's less risky, less demanding, and less rewarding. Obama wants to spread around other people's wealth, rewarding people as he sees fit, regardless of economics, to increase his power.
October 17, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
A progressive tax schedule is not a redistribution of wealth. It's a redistribution of burden. Why are conservatives okay with giving my tax dollars to corporation, such as Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater? Oh, and don't hand me any B.S. that they earn it. Enlisted soldiers, for example, risk their lives for a hell of a lot less than the six-figures paid to Blackwater mercenaries.
Secondly, regarding what liberals know about economics, I'll let you research for yourself which administrations have delivered the most growth and wealth creation for the nation (FDR, Clinton), and which have produced the greatest deficits and destroyed the most wealth (Coolidge, Hoover, Reagan, G.W. Bush). Try explaining that economic reality Mr. Conservative.
Finally, It's a total lie that Republicans give tax breaks, they give tax deferments. Republicans cut taxes but don't cut spending, which means that they borrow the difference, mostly from the Asia and the Middle East, and defer it the cost to a future tax bill. After including the interest payments on that borrowed money, Republicans actually have increased our total tax burden. Our ever growing national (doubled under Bush) is the proof.
October 17, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Typo corrections:
Republicans cut taxes but don't cut spending, which means that they borrow the difference, mostly from Asia and the Middle East, and defer the cost to a future tax bill. After including the interest payments on that borrowed money, Republicans actually have increased our total tax burden. Our ever growing national debt (doubled under Bush) is the proof.
October 17, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reagan tried to cut spending, but the dem congress refused. When was the last time dems were demanding less spending, except for less military spending?
October 17, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was his veto pen out of ink?
October 17, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Da poor sad widdle bulldog's back. Government's can't create wealth, corporate taxation should be zero, Republicans don't produce deficits, only owners take risks, it never ends with this lil fella. Funny that all I see are Republican deficits that have nearly swallowed the nation... CEO's who now seem to require 10 times the incentives they used to, who've managed to tank their companies and seem unable to pronounce accountability... corporations (after receiving the rights of other citizens), who don't want to pay taxes... and an understanding of wealth creation that probably plays well at the Big Moose & Knockers bar in Colorado Springs.
Bark Bark!!!! Bark! _____ _ _____, _______ !
October 17, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and don't give me that garbage about giving money to companies. The corp tax rate should be zero. That would encourage growth and boost the economy. It is stupid to punish companies with high taxes and then complain that they are not creating enough new jobs.
October 17, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does giving them my tax dollars have to do with your opinion that they should pay no taxes? In fact, my wealth is being redistributed to them! Why aren't you just as upset about that? Be careful with your answer, your wealth redistribution rant could expose you to appearing hypocritical.
October 17, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The trickle down theory sounded like a good idea. I mean, it makes sense...the rich people buy a bunch of stuff and it gives the peons jobs making the stuff for them to buy...sounded reasonable. But, then came the global economy, and now the rich people are getting richer, they are buying the stuff that is made overseas, shipping the jobs that their companies used to provide overseas, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class has all but disappeared.
Its time to try something new, and giving "bottom up" a shot sounds as good as any plan I can think of. Much as I would have loved it, trickle down just doesn't work anymore. Many corporations pay little or no taxes, the super rich have accountants up the wazoo to find more and more ways for them to keep from paying taxes, the poor can't pay any and the rest of us are being asked to foot the bill for wars we can't afford and foot the bill for the humanitarian work here and around the world that a rich, blessed nation needs to provide.
We, the hard working people of the middle class, have enough to live, if we are careful, but we get to watch as the super rich live in opulent splendor and excess while others struggle through no fault of their own, and some even starve.
For God's sake, how much is enough? We make far less than the 250K threshold that Obama has set as the amount that won't be taxed more. We're doing just fine. We can buys a few toys here and there. We sent our kids to college. We take a nice vacation now and then. We eat well and put a nice home over our heads.
When did it become all about the money? When did we start valuing stuff over people?
Yeah, we need to start spreading the wealth. And if we can't do it freely, ourselves, then the government needs to step in and help us do it. When greedy CEOs are taking $400million golden parachutes and the Carly Fiorinos of the country are taking away $42million severance packages after laying off thousands of people and decimating companies, while people are going w/o decent healthcare, and children are growing up in rat infested hellholes, I'd say its high time.
October 17, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, there is nothing 'new' to socialism. It has been tried repeatedly, and it fails. Those jobs are going overseas because it makes sense for them to do so. We have the 2nd highest corp tax in the world. For US companies to compete, they have to lower costs. If we eliminated the tax burden, they would have a reason to stay here, and would create more jobs. I have no problem regulating CEO pay for public companies, the SEC should do it to protect the shareholders.
October 17, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice try, you clever little bulldog...
Although we do have high corporate taxes in principle, the reality is quite different:
http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/economy/high-corporate-tax-rate-is-misleading-22463/
October 17, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
CleverBulldog, I am not in the least clueless about economics and I am as liberal as they come.
Your series of questions all presuppose that everyone acts for self-interest alone. That simply is not the case. Nor should it be.
Try a thought experiment, CB: imagine ANY economic act you do that does not have the welfare of someone else partially in mind. Even if you are a solitary bachelor, as you might well be, you will find that even then your actions factor in the welfare of others even if at a distant derivation.
There is no exemption from this human reality for entrepreneurs and factory owners. All economic actions are not exempt from community entanglements and they are not exempt from moral calculi. Can you think of any human action that effects other people that is exempt from value judgments?
You espouse a radical vision of economic activity as value neutral and falsely compartmentalized into small solipsistic universes of agency self-interest.
It simply is not so, never was so, and cannot be so unless you have the morals of a predator.
October 17, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink