We're all redistributionists, including Romney

[DDEATH]

We're all redistributionists, including Romney

An old tape that shows Barack Obama saying he believes in "redistribution" is hardly the big scoop that Mitt Romney's presidential campaign claims. To some degree, we're all redistributionists now, even Romney.

Romney's campaign and conservative media have been touting the 1998 video clip of then-state Sen. Barack Obama at Chicago's Loyola University, in which he says "I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot."

That R-word is a fighting word to the far-right, especially the wing nuts who view Obama as a quasi-Marxist, secret Muslim and secret Kenyan who can't wait to hand your nest egg over to welfare cheats.
However, as more sensible conservatives point out, the "redistribution" sound bite is hardly hot news. We chewed over the redistributionist rap quite well after presidential candidate Obama told Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher four years ago that he wanted to "spread the wealth around."

Besides, in an uncut version of the Loyola tape unearthed by NBC, Obama goes on to argue for competition and free-market capitalism, coupled with a need to help the least fortunate. That's a thoroughly mainstream argument.

In fact, whether we Americans face up to it or not, we're all redistributionists now, including Romney.

Take, for example, Social Security and Medicare. They remain two of the government's most popular, fiercely protected programs, despite their long-term funding woes. Mend them, don't end them, voters say. Yet each program is redistributive in its own way.

So is our progressive tax structure with the way its complicated array of income brackets and exemptions is set up. Even flat-tax proponents tend to be redistributionists. They merely want to redistribute the taxing-and-spending burdens and benefits in a different way.

That's where Romney rolled off the rails, in my view, in his far more damaging, secretly videotaped remarks at a Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser — a video clip from which his camp has tried in vain to divert attention with the Obama video.

Responding to a question about his campaign, Romney declared he was not going to worry about the "47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what" because they "pay no income tax," "so our message of low taxes doesn't connect." They were "dependent upon government," Romney said, and believe that they are "victims" and "are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it."

But the 47 percent who didn't pay federal income taxes in 2011 didn't pay because they did not owe any taxes. More than half of them did work and paid payroll taxes and state and local taxes, but did not earn enough to pay federal income taxes, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The rest were mostly elderly. Fewer than one in 10 were classified as nonworking.

And the taxes they paid amounted to a higher percentage of their income than they did for upper-income earners, the center reports.

Although Romney allowed in a Fox News interview that he could have been more "elegant" with his remarks, he didn't back away from them. Rather, he said he believed we should have enough well-paying jobs so that "people have the privilege of higher incomes" that would enable them to pay taxes.

"I think people would like to be paying taxes," Romney said in what may be the nicest thing that a major Republican candidate has said about taxes since the era before Ronald Reagan.

In fact, Romney used to like redistributive programs when he was the moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts. However, it appears he has since put that former self into a blind trust held by the tea party.

That's politics. The political issue is not whether government redistributes but who pays and who benefits.

Besides, Romney should know better than to conflate the nonpaying 47 percent with committed Obama voters. Only about two-thirds of people in families earning less than $30,000 voted for Obama in 2008, according to exit polls. The rest voted for Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain. If Romney really wants to give those low-income voters away, I'm sure Obama would be delighted to take them.

[GEEZER]

Don't we all believe in that to a certain extent........
Take a little of your deadbeat time....redistribute it to work time....and the Boss redistributes some of the company,s to you on Friday....It's called a paycheck.
Even better, come up with some way to get the public to redistribute some of their money to you for "services rendered", do it enough and well enough....then you can hire someone to help and then you can redistribute some of the money you make to an EMPLOEE............Funny how that works.

[WindowMan]

I think the argument of trickle down has long been debunked. The real driver of the economy is the middle class and what they spend into buying products and services since which creates demand for employees and hopefully ones that reside in the United States. Tax breaks for the top 2 percent does little to make the jobs and we can see from the tax rates we have had since GW Bush was President. Yet the Republicans still believe in this method and never changed in their message that cutting taxes on the top percent creates jobs. Give the middle class people more spending money in their hands and watch the economy turn around! Hell they won't invest into some Swiss Bank account with it, they will spend it!

[DDEATH]

Right Windowman! We can see it here when Obamanomics took over from GWnomics. A complete turnaround!

I can't understand why anyone would want to go back to GWnomics???? Unless.......... they're in the 2%!

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[vetclerk]

Hey DDeath could you show that chart one more time.I didn't get catch it the first 12 TIMES Peace , my forum brothers. Gotta love this country

[WindowMan]

Might take 50 times for it to sink in for some in here!

[DDEATH]

Hey DDeath could you show that chart one more time.I didn't get catch it the first 12 TIMES Peace , my forum brothers. Gotta love this country

Glad to oblige with a slightly different version from the Labor Bureau:

I'd like to have one of the many who want to go back to "trickle down", explain it.

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[WestTX]

Gotdamn, cuz all them color bar graph'ens hurtz my head!

All that aside, ain't the positive growth jest above the X-axis for Obama attributable to the gov-ment stimalus from the Fed increasing the money supply? I ain't try'en to be sarcastic or nuthen, butt we're in a world of hurtz.

BTW: I'm think'em bout' goin to a Morman Church service as an outsider... to see how I can fit in with the Romney crowd. I sure nuff wud like Dazed to come along with me... Heck, they got some pretty women that wid probably take a like'en to Dazed in the hopes of marriage. Dazed and I can always say we left the Episcopal Church cuz of the hummasexual takeover. I hear that gotdamn hummasexual bishop from New England (Vicki Robinson) is have'en hissy and fart fits with his husband. Maybe they'll get a divorce or something like that. I thought my roids' were bad from ride'en the mule, butt that bishop must have some horrible sores from too much back-door'en!

Dazed: Let's go... Can you meet in Salt Lake City this Sunday?

DDeath: You're something else... Can you make a mold cutter of one of Obama's big ears, then pop-out some fresh cherry lobes (pastries)? Hell, you could market them things down in the Loop!

WindowMan: Did you run Daisy off? I ain't seen him round' here too much lately. And where in the Hell is KeepitReal?

You boys have a good evening. I'm sure nuff try'en to keep a positive attitude...

WestTX

[DDEATH]

Tex, I don't make them........ I only eat them!

That graph would make a great 15 or 30 second commercial for nobama. Just run it on the tv a few times a day with no sound.

It might eventually dawn on the baggers and 50% of the 47%; that going back to the trickle down is not an option.

Here's another that GRAPHICALLY shows where the trillion dollar deficits each of the last four years, come from........... and what starting two wars, followed by a tax CUT, will result in!

Hey, let's give another tax cut to the rich!!!

deficit-causes.png (144.77 KiB) Viewed 183 times

[keepitreal]

Based on election polls out there...I think folks are starting to get the message, DD...