The "R" Word

(originally posted October 28, 2008)

A few months back a rumor was started (likely by someone on the right) that there was a telling video of Michelle Obama giving a speech and using "The R Word". The R word in this case was rumored to be RETRIBUTIONS. Then someone started a rumor (most likely by someone on the left) that Sean Hannity had the video and was holding it during the "Stop Hillary Express" campaign he was running, and that he planned to reveal it once Obama won the nomination.

By now most people realize that the video wasn't a video, it was an audio tape. STRIKE ONE!

And it wasn't Michelle Obama, it was Barack. STRIKE TWO!!

And the "R" word wasn't retributions, it was REDISTRIBUTE. STRIKE THREE!!!

But it's not out! Because it was a good rumor, it played into the circus surrounding Rev Wright, a black angry man, and attributed it to Michelle Obama, a black angry woman. Easy to believe.

However, instead of the Black Liberation philosophy of retributions it is the Marxist philosophy of redistribution of wealth that was being discussed.

And what makes that hard to believe is that Barack Obama and Joe Biden started talking about redistribution of wealth before the tape surfaced. And that is the most incredible thing of all. That a candidate from a major party was telling people he was going to spread the wealth around. Well not their wealth, our wealth. Or rather what we consider our wealth to be.

Which brings me to the thing I wanted to write about. When Joe Biden says that he and Obama have no plant to redistribute wealth he is technically correct. That is right, he is correct. mark your calenders, because pretty much everything else Joe says is wrong or a lie... mostly its a lie.

You see, what Obama and Biden are talking about doing is NOT redistributing wealth; they are going to redistribute income.

While they pretend to be "progressive" and "reformers" they are elitists. Oddly enough since neither of them are in the wealthy category, but they are rich according to most people's standards.

But they are not truly Marxist or socialist, they are just borrowing those principles. They are allowing people to keep their wealth (for now anyway) and are increasing taxes on income. Sure they want to reinstitute the estate taxes making sure the government gets their hands on more of a family's wealth after dad dies, but the wealthy have foundations, trusts, and other means with which to protect their assets from the tax man.

What they want to do is increase the tax burden on the middle and upper middle classes while bestowing that money on the lower classes. The sums they are talking about does not begin to relieve the burden on the lower class, but it does increase their numbers. For the last 25 years the percentage of households living in poverty and earning lowest 20% of income has declined. While the top 40% of wage earners has increased. In this period, from 1983 until 2002 the poverty rate has dropped and the middle class has risen. From 2002 until 2008 poverty continued to decline along with the middle class, which declined because the upper class grew.
So when Joe Biden says "Bush devastated the middle class", it is because they moved into the top 40% of wage earners. And while it is accurate to claim that in the Bush administration the middle class shrunk, it is at the same time bit disingenuous, because those people succeeded in moving into the upper class.

Obama has stated he wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire... all of them, capital gains, estate tax, and income tax. So that increases taxes on everyone, not just those making more than the $250K figure he has been throwing about. A family that earns $75,000 will see their income tax burden increase by $3,000 a year. Children tax credits? Gone. And of course the marriage penalty is back, Obama has been careful to say taxpayer instead of wage earner in his speeches.

Of course the tax credits that he proposes are nothing more than entitlements for the low end wage earners. The problem is that unless you do not earning anything, those tax credits are being used to partially pay for the increase in your tax burden. And the increase at the corporate end of the spectrum, who pays for that? The consumer. And who, according to progressive theory, does the increased prices (to pay for the increased taxes) affect the most? The most vulnerable end of the low pay scale. But that is OK, because Obama has already accounted for that in his tax credits.

So his tax credits will go for paying taxes. How ironic.

But if his tax credits go to pay taxes, why bother to redistribute income? Because it will increase the number of poor and those in poverty who need to be served by government programs. It will (in the short time at least) decrease the discretionary spending of people who donate the most to private and faith based charities who are far more efficient at tending to those in need than the government. That will increase the number of people who will have to be served by the government.

It is about growing the government and increasing dependence on the government.

You see, if Obama and Biden really planned on redistributing wealth Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, T. Boone Pickens and every major corporation in the country would buy every available minute of air time on TV to run ads against him. But instead they are silent. And they are silent because Obama wants to redistribute income, not wealth.

In the US the top 5% of wager earners represent 22% of all income but 59% of all wealth. Obama's tax plan will tax their income, but not their wealth. Their money is safe. We cannot say the same thing