The Redhunter

October 14, 2008

Obama's Socialist Plan for Income Redistribution

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Most Democrats at least hide what they are doing. Not so Senator Barack Obama

Here's what he said if you missed it

Barack Obama told a tax-burdened plumber over the weekend that his economic philosophy is to "spread the wealth around" -- a comment that may only draw fire from riled-up John McCain supporters who have taken to calling Obama a "socialist" at the Republican's rallies.

Obama made the remark, caught on camera, after fielding some tough questions from the plumber Sunday in Ohio, where the Democratic candidate canvassed neighborhoods and encouraged residents to vote early.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

This is socialism plain and simple.

But wait, there's more:

This is from one of the debates during the primaries earlier this year

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

Senator Obama does not like the way wealth is distributed the United States. It's not just that he has different ideas on how to jump start the economy, or how to pull us out of our current fiscal difficulties. No, he thinks he knows better.

Tax policy should be used for two things; funding government programs and inciting certain behavior. The first is obvious. An example of the second is the mortgage tax deduction (which somehow is never described as a 'loophole") which was designed to encourage home ownership.

But Obama is not happy with this. To him taxes should be used to punish some and reward others.

This, then, is the real Obama. The one who wants to remake America. And to think that some say that his radical past and associations don't matter.

On Obama's campaign website is this

Obama's Comprehensive Tax Policy Plan for America will:

* Cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples.

The Wall Street Journal, in an article today titled Obama's 95% Illusion:
It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is explains why these promises are misleading in some detail, but the bottom line is pretty simple

Somewhere around a third (or here) of all adult Americans pay no income taxes at all. So how can 95% receive a refund? Simple: You just write them a check. This is income redistribution in the name of "fairness."

On the the WSJ:

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends "refundability" on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.
...

There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.

I can answer that last one; because his campaign is incompetent, that's why.

Update

Note to any leftist trolls who may happen by; the issue is not "Joe the plumber". His circumstances are not relevant (and most of what the lefties are saying about him are lies). What's relevant is Obama's plan for socialist income redistribution.

10-27 Update

This is incredible. It's Barack Obama in a 1995 interview discussing how he wants to redistribute wealth in the United States

Stop the ACLU has a partial transcript

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 6, 2008

What McCain Can Do To Win

As I think we're all aware, most of the polls show that McCain-Palin is down about 6 points to Obama-Biden. Six points is outside of the margin or error, and even though the election is of course decided in the electoral college I think it's safe to say that right now McCain-Palin has to play catch up.

This is not as hard as it might seem. A month is an eternity, and bigger point spreads have been reversed. I won't go through them but if you know your electoral history you'll know what I'm talking about.

It would seem to me that there are, generally speaking, three courses of action

1) Talk about Obama's questionable associations, in particular Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers.

2) Promote the McCain-Palin economic package as superior to that of Obama-Biden. Make offshore drilling part of this message. While doing this highlight congressional Democrats who are tied to the fiscal crisis.

3) Portray Obama and Biden as so far to the left so as to be completely out of the mainstream. At the same time, promote McCain-Palin as reformers who will take on their own party and who have and are able to work with Democrats.

I think that McCain ought to do a combintion 2 & 3. No one who is not already turned off by Obama's associations will do so now. The mainstream media is completely in the tank for Obama and is simply not interested in doing any serious investigation.

Here is a recent McCain TV commercial of the type that he needs to do more of

This one has gone viral on right-wing blogs, which is great, but needs to be turned into a TV commercial. If the McCain campaign doesn't do it, one of our 527s need to (if they have, it needs to get out more). The video consists of excerpts from a late 2004 hearing that was to investigate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's illegal bookkeeping.

If you only watch one video here, watch this one:

Here's some footage of Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the "Family" and the "Conscience" of Fannie Mae that he ought to be using

Here is one from the NRCC that tells the story that McCain needs to get out more

Blame Alone Won't Work

Attacking Democrats along won't work, though, because Obama himself was not a part of the current fiscal crisis. even though as president I can't see Obama challenging his own congressional liberals, too many people will simply buy the Hope! and Change! mantra for this to be effective.

David Gelernter at The Weekly Standard gets it pretty much right, I think

McCain might break through the media fortress that protects independents from the truth if he'd repeat a small packet of information word-for-word at the end of every single speech. Soon crowds would anticipate these words and reporters would know them by heart, and they'd start making an impression on the country. Here are mine; but whatever words he chooses, he must start hammering home some simple truths right now.

1. Mr. Obama is the most liberal senator in Washington.

2. Like other liberal presidents, he'd load the Supreme Court with the most liberal judges he could find.

3. Like other liberal presidents, he'd spend tax dollars like they were going out of style--when the economy must have a steady, experienced, pork-hating hand at the wheel.

4. Like other liberal senators, Mr. Obama was prepared to surrender to terrorists in Iraq.

5. Like other liberal senators, he is the wrong man to protect your children against Russia, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda in dangerous times.

6. I fought for responsible regulation of the mortgage merchants when the Democrats were against it. I don't just talk, I act.

7. My closest Senate colleague is a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. I don't just talk bipartisanship, I act.

8. I picked Sarah Palin because our country needs young leaders who don't just talk; who act.

9. I'll do what I know is right, no matter what China or Germany or the U.N. thinks. You can't protect this nation by talking. You have to act.

10. Don't judge me as a politician or speech-maker. Judge me as a man who is more than talk. I would lay down my life for this country.

Some will wonder why energy is not a bigger part of this equation. I think it should included, but the fact is that the financial situation is dominating the news and has pushed energy to the sidelines.

In the end, campaigns are like wars, everyone is full of advice and if you lose the people whose advice you didn't take predictably say "if only they'd listened to me", not thinking that their advice might have made the situation worse.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 3, 2007

What a Shame

Peggy Noonan's Friday column in the Wall Street Journal, "Too Bad", has been getting much deserved attention on conservative blogs. So even though you've probably already read it, I thought it worth attention here because much of her column reflects my own views on Presidents Bush 41 and 43. She might not have it all quite right but she's definately on the right track.

Her piece is mostly a lament about wasted political capital and what might have been. Conservatives are not breaking with the White House, she says, but rather Bush has broken with them (or us). This is simply the final straw in a long train of abuses, from out-of-control federal spending, to a Ted Kennedy-written education bill, to the appointment of Harriet Myers, to the Supreme Court to the incompetence of Alberto Gonzales we have been let down.

As Noonan tells it,

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Conservatives put up with it because one, we generally support OEF and OIF, and two the Democrats have been gulping the anti-war coolaid. So despite the abuses, we've supported the president. But now we're essentially told that we're racists because we don't support what amounts to amnesty for illegal aliens.

Why is the administration behaving this way? Noonan has some ideas:

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

I think she's onto something. Bush has also been pandering to the global-warming alarmists, making noises to the effect that "hey I'm onboard too you know! I want to do the right thing too!"

One has to wonder if it's all sheer political opportunism. But if he thinks that embracing leftist causes like amnesty for illegals and global warming will win him any friends he's dreaming. Those who hate him will at this point continue to hate him anway. And if he's after "legacy" he's dreaming too, because that's wrapped up in the war, whatever name you want to give it.

Some commentators insist that all of President Bush's problems are tied to Iraq. I disagree. Sure, had we destroyed the insurgency early on his troubles would be lessened, I think that the immigration fiasco illustrates that he'd still be in trouble, perhaps more so.

Let's face it, conservatives rally 'round a Republican president over military affairs, and tend to support the mission through thick and thin. Without Iraq though there's just a vague "War on Terror" (terribly misnamed). Given his abysmal performace from a conservative perspective on domestic policies, we'd have deserted him much longer ago. And while without Iraq the left may not hate him with such virulence, they'd still never vote for him.

So even with Iraq as it is, if the president had performed credibly on domestic issues he'd still have a strong conservative base to support him. But even that is gone now.

Noonan ends by comparing reviewing how George H W Bush sqandered the legacy handed to him by Reagan, and how his son is squandering his by throwing away the base that elected him.

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

What a shame.

Posted by Tom at 9:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 12, 2004

Immigration and Economics

I had a debate with a friend of mine on the issue of immigration and the global economy. He sent me a copy of the Phyllis Shlafly Report titled "What the Global Economy Costs Americans"

I responded to him with a critique of her column. Sections are reprinted below.

First, do we really want these jobs to stay here?  Consider the consequences of forcing

corporations to keep these jobs here.  To do these jobs, Americans will want to be paid

more than Indians or Chinese.  The increased cost will be passed along to the consumer.

So your bills will eventually (maybe not immediately) go up.  You'll pay more for many

services in the long run.  Because either prices will have to go up, or corporate revinues

will have to go down.  Lagging revinues means recession.  Is this really good for the

American consumer?


Second, any discussion of outsourcing must also include insourcing.  You don't hear so much

about it, but jobs are coming to the United States.  And we are creating new jobs all the time.

In the short term both outsourcing and insourcing cause social dislocations causing politicians

to get involved.   Thomas Sowell has an excellent editorial on this which you can find here.

It's time for Congress to call a halt to the scandal of the way big corporations hire foreigners at the same time they are laying off their American employees. The hiring of hundreds of thousands of foreigners is why this year's college graduates face the worst job market in recent memory.

When U.S. corporations built hundreds of plants in Third World  countries, we were

told not to worry about losing blue-collar  manufacturing jobs because we were

keeping the service jobs. Now the  high-paying white-collar service jobs are going

overseas, too,  particularly jobs for engineers and computer specialists.  


Follow the money. The big corporations hire aliens from India and China  at  half or

a third the wages, work them long hours without overtime pay,  and  treat them like

indentured servants unable to quit for a better job.  What makes this racket possible

is the partnership between corporations  and government.

The wording in this article is a bit too conspiratorial for me, but I'll answer the substance

anyway.


Yes "corporations" hire illegals because they can pay them less. And politicians are reluctant

to crack down because of the economics of the matter.  What economics am I talking about?

Consider the consequequences of tossing all illegals out of the country.  The jobs previously

done by the illegals would now be open.  But Americans would refuse to take these jobs at the

same wage rates as the illegals were paid.  Thus to fill these jobs corporations would have

to raise wages.  The consequences of this would be higher prices paid by the consumer.  Either

that, or lower corporate profits.  And the consequences of lower profits are twofold; lower

investment in new plant and R&D, and lower stock prices. Do you want your 401k to tank?

Now, I am NOT saying that we should ignore illegal immigration.  In fact, I'm in favor of a

cracking down. What I AM saying is that we need to understand the economic consequences

of doing so.  Unfortunately the Eagle Forum newsletter you sent me makes no attempt to do so.

The corporations make political contributions to assure the passage of legislation that legalizes the importation of foreign cheap labor by the devices called H1B visas L-1 visas, and outsourcing....

I admit that I don't know enough about these issues to really comment on the details.


But the basic economics are clear enough; if you put a halt to these visas you will end up paying

higher prices as a consumer.  This may or may not be what the public wants, but before we take

any decisions we need to understand the economic consequences.  This article seems to think

that you can cut off visa's and we'll all live happily ever after. 

Corporations hire people for less money because they're trying to stay competitive.  They want

to offer a good service at a low price.  There's nothing really conspiratorial about it. 

Ok readers, tell me if I've got it right or not. 

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October 25, 2004

The "Social Justice" Candidate

John Kerry now tells us that he is the "Social Justice" candidate;

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry said a broad vision of social justice, including care for the poor and those without health insurance, is at the root of his religion and would guide his presidency.

He then went on to quote Matthew 25:40

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me

This is in context of a series of lessons and parables that Jesus is telling to his disciples as they sat on the Mount of Olives. (Full text of Matthew 25 here for context)

Kerry then told the audience what this passage means to him;

"The ethical test of a good society is how it treats its most vulnerable members," he said, arguing that the government has an obligation to protect the environment, fight AIDS, reduce poverty and defeat terrorism."

Apparently, then, it is to him the justification for government spending. And that is fair enough, as far as it goes. I would not be one to argue that governments should not provide a "safety net" for it's disadvantaged citizens.

But let's think about this a bit more; what Kerry is saying here is that religion will guide his actions as president. What he is clearly saying here is that "because it is in the bible we have to make this public policy."

What comes to mind in a nanosecond is his position on abortion. Consider his answer to a question on this subject in the second debate;

GIBSON: Going to go to the final two questions now, and the first one will be for Senator Kerry. And this comes from Sarah Degenhart.

DEGENHART: Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?

KERRY: I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.

First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that.

Whoa there, senator. Which is it?

Apparently it depends on which audience he is speaking to. Just last March, when speaking at a church in St Louis, he told is that

``The Scriptures say: `It is not enough, my brother, to say you have faith, when there are no deeds.' We look at what is happening in America today and we say: Where are the deeds?'' preached Kerry.

The contradictions just keep coming.

Posted by Tom at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2004

Two Big Differences

Grover Norquist spoke about the two big differences between the two parties at the GOPUSA conference.

Norquist is usually known for his stand on tax issues, so while we got some handouts on that, his comments centered on ideological differences between conservatives and liberals and the effect that has on intraparty problems and issues.

Difference Number One

This centers on the libertarianism that has become so much a part of the conservative agenda. Many of those on the right "just want to be left alone"; they don't want to force their ideas on other people. For example, gun owners don't insist that everyone else own a gun, they (we) just want to own ours in peace. SUV drivers don't care what anyone else owns, they just don't want the government raising CAFE standards too much.

Me - It will be objected that the Pro-Life and Evangelical Christian lobbies want to impose their views on others. "A woman has a right to do what she wants with her own body" and "keep your religion out of the government" are two standard rallying cries you'll hear (They're too trite to rate the label "argument"). As to the former, there 's more than one body involved, and you don't have the right to kill it. To the latter, no one (well, no serious person) is trying to make Christianity the official religion of the country. But to say that a Christmas display is "imposing religion", or that a public official can't use his or her religion as a guide to public policy is lunacy. If you can't use religion as a guide to decision making, it has no value.

Difference Number Two

The Democratic party today consists of a number of interest groups who are all in competition with each other. No such situation exists within the GOP.

For example, environmentalists and labor leaders are often at odds with each other. The former want a pristine environment regardless of the economic impact, and the latter are concerned with jobs. Remember the Spotted Owl controversy of the late '80s? Conservatives watched with amusement as liberal interest groups went at each other.

No such direct conflict exists on the right. This is not to say that there is ideological uniformity on the right (nor should there be). For example, it is possible to be pro-gun yet "pro-choice", and thus be at odds with pro-life conservatives. But this is incidental, not inherent, in the two positions. There is no inherent reason why fiscal conservatives should find themselves in conflict with religious conservatives, to choose another example.

The reason for this is that the Democrats have become the "takings" party. Their groups want to "take something", or "regulate something". They want law after law after law after law. If they cannot continue to pass these laws, or keep tax rates high, they will wither on the vine. They depend on continued, activist change. Conservative groups face no such challenge, for they just want to be left alone.

The Consequences

The result of these differences is that the liberal coalition is high maintenance, while the conservative one is low maintenance. Norquist's theory (as I understood it) was that this will make the interest groups of Democratic party much harder to manage. The party bosses already have a hard time satisfying the various coalitions, keeping them from each other's throats will become ever more difficult.

More on Norquist's ideas on these subjects can be found here and here.

Me - What we have seen over the past twenty or so years is a trend towards ever more stringent enforcement of ideological orthodoxy among the Democrats, while the GOP is truly the "big tent" party. I plan on writing more extensively on this subject in the future, so check back.

Back to Taxes

It would be impossible to write an article about Grover Norquist without discussing taxes. That would be like writing an article about CBS without mentioning the forged documents Dan Rather unwittingly tried to foist on us.

Norquist's organization is Americans for Tax Reform. On their agenda is enactment of a flat tax and elimination of the IRS. Social Security and Medicare should be totally privatized. The Federal government should be cut in half.

Now, these things are not going to happen. No how, no way.

So it is tempting to write him off as a utopian dreamer. This, however, would be an error.

For the real value and purpose of people like Grover Norquist is that they change the terms of the debate. It is now "acceptable" to talk about flattening out tax rates, whereas thirty years ago this would have gotten you booed off the stage. Reagan was the first to reduce the top income tax rate from it's absurd level of 90% (I believe). That was the start, now the objective is to keep making it flatter and flatter.

For example, Steve Forbes famously ran for president as a single issue candiate on just this issue. I do not believe that he would have been able to do so without the prior efforts of people like Grover Norquist.

If you'd like a philosophical label, you can use the Hegel's dialectical formula of history: Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis

What do I think?

I am personally in support of a flat tax, although I recognize that political realities are such that it will not occur, at least not in our time.

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