Obama wants to Redistribute Wealth

[Mr.Canada]

This is disturbing to say the least.

Audio tape from 2001 Radio program.

Obama wants to redistribute the wealth in the USA, which is a communist goal.

Edited October 29, 2008 by Mr.Canada

[Sir Bandelot]

Its not Marxism. Joe Biden gave an idiotic response showing he does not even know what Marxism is. If he did he would have put that stupid question away and made her look like a fool. Marxism requires a peoples revolution every twenty years, constant revolution by the workers to overthrow the current establishment, because of the potential for corruption that inevitably occurs in any system. According to Marx the class war never ends, it is only put down temporarily. Until the rich are utterly eliminated and society eveolves into a classless communist state. Marxism requires constant violence.

Then there is the concept of collective ownership. You don't own anything, like property, house etc. all is owned by the state.

Edited October 29, 2008 by Sir Bandelot

[sharkman]

Obama is selling socialism. Most people, who don't know how to create wealth, think the 'fat cats' have an endless supply of money to be taxed. Class envy is a good manipulator, but the damage it will do to a flatlining economy is scary.

[gc1765]

Tax cuts for the middle class = communism

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Liam]

This is disturbing to say the least.

Audio tape from 2001 Radio program.

Obama wants to redistribute the wealth in the USA, which is a communist goal.

This is another one of those V-8 moments, when I slap my forehead in disbelief at what people take away from these things. McCain is preying on peoples' intellectual laziness and capitalizing on our soundbite culture. In this audio, Obama IS NOT advocating the use of the courts to redistribute wealth. Obama is actually taking a very CONSERVATIVE position on the Supreme Court in the audio from 2001.

What Obama said:

1. The Warren Court (Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren) was not as socially radical as people think, it never went so far as to use its power to decide cases of wealth redistribution.

2. The great tragedy of the civil rights movement is that it's leaders only sought social justice through the court system; the more effective approach for the civil rights movement would have been community activism and persuading legislators to enact the social programs they wanted.

In sum: Obama is saying it was wrong for civil rights leaders to seek the help of "activist" judges (who turned them away, anyhow); they should have fought their battles in the court of public opinion and among federal and state legislatures. His position is the exact same as that of most conservative legal minds = get your social justice through legislative means, not by seeking help from the courts.

[Liam]

Just one additional point about the whole "redistribution" issue, if Obama is a Marxist, then so was Reagan, so was Ford, Bush I and II, and Clinton... ever hear of the Earned Income Tax Credit? It is one of the most direct transfers of wealth (redistribution, if you will) from those with money to those without and it is enshrined in the US tax code with very wide bipartisan support.

First enacted under Ford (socialist!), it was expanded under Reagan (Marxist!), Bush I (Leninist!), Clinton (Chavist!) and Bush II (Maoist!). (Note, since its inception only Jimmy Carter, that raving commie, did not expand it.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit

I'd say Obama's tax plan, which is very close to the beloved Reagan's, puts him in fairly good company.

[Liam]

Tax cuts for the middle class = communism

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Yes, but tax cuts for the richest 1% is a sacred and sensible god-a'mighty pro-American tax policy.

[GostHacked]

Obama is selling socialism. Most people, who don't know how to create wealth, think the 'fat cats' have an endless supply of money to be taxed. Class envy is a good manipulator, but the damage it will do to a flatlining economy is scary.

Communism has socialistic aspects to it. But saying they are the same is just plain ignorant. Hell even McCain supports this. One interview done some years ago showed him saying that people who are well off should be able to help out more.

A tax cut/break is not socialism as Liam points out. If that is the case, then yes Bush Jr. is a socialist with the tax cuts he wanted to make permanent. Not to mention the recent socialising errrr nationalizing of a few majopr banks.

Governments by nature (to me anyways) are socialistic in some apects. They take your tax money and distribute it as they see fit. No one complains about this.

Obama wants to make health care available to all. If everyone gets the health care they need, it can be called socialism, but also is just smart. Healthy people are happy and productive people.

McCain

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8041403056.html

Sen. John McCain will propose today that affluent seniors pay more for government-provided drug benefits as a way to control health-care spending, aides said in previewing a major speech on economics that the Arizona Republican will deliver in Pittsburgh.

The proposal is similar to a controversial one put forth last fall by President Bush, in which married retirees who make more than $160,000 a year would pay increasingly higher costs for the newly established Medicare prescription drug plans.

McCain says he wants to give every family a 5000 tax credit/rebate to help out with the cost of healthcare. Is this a one time thing? Or will he make it a yearly thing?

http://pressedforpolitics.wordpress.com/20...how-patriotism/

Although Republican John McCain claims that Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama’s proposals.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mc...iness_bunk.html

That figure is six years out of date. The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy estimates the total number of "small" firms with fewer than 500 workers reached 26.8 million in 2006. That's the most recent estimate. But it is also inflated. Since the total U.S. population was just under 300 million in 2006, it would mean that one in every 11 Americans – men, women and children – is a "small-business owner."

This part I find interesting

Obama's plan, according to his economic policy director Jason Furman, would return the top two federal income-tax rates to what they were before Bush lowered them. In addition, Obama would adjust the income-tax brackets to ensure that no married couple making under $250,000 or single filer making under $200,000 would pay the top rates.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Obama is selling socialism. Most people, who don't know how to create wealth, think the 'fat cats' have an endless supply of money to be taxed. Class envy is a good manipulator, but the damage it will do to a flatlining economy is scary.

Exactly.

What people these types of socialists never seem to get is that rasing taxes on businesses is the worst possible thing you could to for the creation of jobs during a downturn.

Lower taxes means more investment means more jobs means bigger pies for everyone.

Socialists can't conceive of bigger or more pies. They see the world with a one dimensional, never changing size of pie which must be cut up into different size pieces by none other than the government.

I used to think the US refused to change to metric or universal health care and such because it was flexing it's economic muscle saying to the world: this is how we do things, and it works just fine!

But now with Barry Obama on the verge of victory, it appears they are just a few decades late on an impending disastrous experiment with socialism, one most of the other G8 countries in the world have already tried turned away from.

[Liam]

But now with Barry Obama on the verge of victory, it appears they are just a few decades late on an impending disastrous experiment with socialism, one most of the other G8 countries in the world have already tried turned away from.

Can I ask what evidence you have that he's a socialist? Aside from how you are subjectively defining the term and subjectively interpreting Obama's statement to (not) Joe the (not real) Plumber? Seriously, other than his casual statement on the rope line about, "you, know, to redistribute the wealth", can you provide substance to support your claim that he is in fact a socialist?

We already have a progressive tax system in this country whereby richer people pay a higher percentage of income taxes than the poorer folks. This scheme has been reinforced by every president for decades, so by continuing the system, Obama is no more a socialist than Eisenhower or Reagan. My understanding is that the richest percentiles of taxpayers would pay no more under Obama than they did under Reagan. How is that socialist, or are you also calling Reagan a socialist? Ike? Nixon? Bush I? All have supported a progressive tax system and all have used government to "spread the wealth" to their own pet groups. So, are they, by your definition, also socialists? I am serious when I ask because I think too many people on the right make these claims in a knee jerk way.

Edited October 29, 2008 by Liam

[JerrySeinfeld]

Can I ask what evidence you have that he's a socialist? Aside from how you are subjectively defining the term and subjectively interpreting Obama's statement to (not) Joe the (not real) Plumber? Seriously, other than his casual statement on the rope line about, "you, know, to redistribute the wealth", can you provide substance to support your claim that he is in fact a socialist?

We already have a progressive tax system in this country whereby richer people pay a higher percentage of income taxes than the poorer folks. This scheme has been reinforced by every president for decades, so by continuing the system, Obama is no more a socialist than Eisenhower or Reagan. My understanding is that the richest percentiles of taxpayers would pay no more under Obama than they did under Reagan. How is that socialist, or are you also calling Reagan a socialist? Ike? Nixon? Bush I? All have supported a progressive tax system and all have used government to "spread the wealth" to their own pet groups. So, are they, by your definition, also socialists? I am serious when I ask because I think too many people on the right make these claims in a knee jerk way.

Listen to the youtube video. Obama think's it was a mistake not to entrech "active" rights (ie. to health care, housing etc. - ie socialist ideals) in the constitution, so it's too late to use the judiciary system to entrench these ideals - we should instead use the legislative system.

A fundamental diference between american - ie. free enterprise ideals - and socialst / Canadian / euro ideals is the concept of "negative" verus "positive" or "active" rights.

Americans and free enterprisers agree and espouse "negative" rights - ie the right to be left alone and free to act. Canadians and other socialists, including Obama in this video, espouse "positive" or "active" rights, meaning an obligation on the part of government to provide people with certain basic things they have a "right" to. That's socialism.

You're comparing Obama to Reagan? What a joke. To Reagan, government was the problem. To Obama, it's the solution.

Edited October 29, 2008 by JerrySeinfeld

[guyser]

A fundamental diference between american - ie. free enterprise ideals -

Hows that free enterprise bailout coming along?

[JerrySeinfeld]

Can I ask what evidence you have that he's a socialist? Aside from how you are subjectively defining the term and subjectively interpreting Obama's statement to (not) Joe the (not real) Plumber? Seriously, other than his casual statement on the rope line about, "you, know, to redistribute the wealth", can you provide substance to support your claim that he is in fact a socialist?

We already have a progressive tax system in this country whereby richer people pay a higher percentage of income taxes than the poorer folks. This scheme has been reinforced by every president for decades, so by continuing the system, Obama is no more a socialist than Eisenhower or Reagan. My understanding is that the richest percentiles of taxpayers would pay no more under Obama than they did under Reagan. How is that socialist, or are you also calling Reagan a socialist? Ike? Nixon? Bush I? All have supported a progressive tax system and all have used government to "spread the wealth" to their own pet groups. So, are they, by your definition, also socialists? I am serious when I ask because I think too many people on the right make these claims in a knee jerk way.

An answer to your "serious" question.

Listen and tell me how this man, Ronald Reagan, agrees with Obama on this issue?

reagan talking about government - Obama's best friend

Edited October 29, 2008 by JerrySeinfeld

[Liam]

Listen to the youtube video. Obama think's it was a mistake not to entrech "active" rights (ie. to health care, housing etc. - ie socialist ideals) in the constitution, so it's too late to use the judiciary system to entrench these ideals - we should instead use the legislative system.

A fundamental diference between american - ie. free enterprise ideals - and socialst / Canadian / euro ideals is the concept of "negative" verus "positive" or "active" rights.

Americans and free enterprisers agree and espouse "negative" rights - ie the right to be left alone and free to act. Canadians and other socialists, including Obama in this video, espouse "positive" or "active" rights, meaning an obligation on the part of government to provide people with certain basic things they have a "right" to. That's socialism.

You're comparing Obama to Reagan? What a joke. To Reagan, government was the problem. To Obama, it's the solution.

First, I'm an American and second, I'm a lawyer who studied Constitutional law. So thanks for trying to lecture me like you do the Canadians.

You are flat out wrong about the audio. Obama is espousing negative rights. He states in unequivocal terms that the Constitution sets up a system of negative rights: it doesn't tell the people what it can do, it tells the government what it cannot do.

You are also flat wrong by saying Obama is espousing positive or active rights. Obama identified the great tragedy of the civil rights movement was its attempt to seek justice through the courts only. Per Obama, the great tragedy of the civil rights leaders was that they did not seek social justice through the legislative process. What a stunningly socialistic thing to say!! My god, call the Cato Institute!!

Obama is actually in agreement with conservative Constitutionalists.

Oh, and despite the links you provided, you sidestepped my question: if Obama and Reagan have nearly identical tax strategies (progressive tax with higher income people paying a higher rate, and the preservation of the Earned Income Tax Credit which directly transfers $ from the rich to the poor), and Obama earned the title of socialist solely because of a statement on tax treatment, how is one a socialist and one not?

Edited October 29, 2008 by Liam

[guyser]

Id suggest that Reagan was wrong on medicine.

[kengs333]

This is disturbing to say the least.

Audio tape from 2001 Radio program.

Obama wants to redistribute the wealth in the USA, which is a communist goal.

Republicans are retards if they believe this. The irony is that the so-called "religious right" tends to vote Republican, yet the Republicans are so un-Christ-like when it comes to dealing with poverty in the USA. Why do Republicans hate their fellow citizens so much? It boggles the mind.

Incidently, seeing things that are not there (ie. nefarious Communist plots) is paranoid, and that's a mental illness.

Edited October 29, 2008 by kengs333

[Hcheh]

Yeah sure, Obama's tax plans are sooo socialist. Tax breaks to the poor, spreading the wealth around for the middle class.. Then I guess giving tax breaks to everybody in the higher classes and spreading wealth (800 billion bailout) around to the banks is much different. Actually, they weren't spreading wealth around to the banks, they were MAKING wealth.. out of thin air.

Leaning to the left or not, someone needs to come in and save the American citizens, things are in pretty bad shape right now.

[GostHacked]

What people these types of socialists never seem to get is that rasing taxes on businesses is the worst possible thing you could to for the creation of jobs during a downturn.

Lower taxes means more investment means more jobs means bigger pies for everyone.

Bush did some huge tax cuts some years ago. Has that helped out at all?? Lower taxes for the majority of people mean that the majority of people can spend a little more money and increase business across the board.

Socialists can't conceive of bigger or more pies. They see the world with a one dimensional, never changing size of pie which must be cut up into different size pieces by none other than the government.

The pie is going to stay the same but seem smaller because of the ever increasing population of the human race. The government already cuts up those peices for it's citizens. Actually the pie you refer to is a lie. As I said, governments by nature are socialistic in many ways. The government decides how your taxes get reditributed for things like health care, transportation infrastructure, jails. And this big bail out package that the banks received is going to be payed by your taxes and your children's taxes. The bail out package is one of the largest examples of socialism I have ever seen in the US's pedestal . Not to mention socialising/nationalizing a couple major banks.

I had seen quite a bit of bashing of Hugo Chavez when he nationalized the country's oil industry. And to most US citizens, it was a bad move, and a bad move towards socialism.

But now with Barry Obama on the verge of victory, it appears they are just a few decades late on an impending disastrous experiment with socialism, one most of the other G8 countries in the world have already tried turned away from.

Well, since you say Canada is a socialistic country, why have we not tanked like all other socialistic societies?? Why are we still alive?

If you wanted a totaly free enterprise economy, disband the government. Let capitolism be free. We don't need any more regulations on things like that now do we?

[noahbody]

Incidently, seeing things that are not there (ie. nefarious Communist plots) is paranoid, and that's a mental illness.

So, what you're saying is you have a mental illness? You did say the following:

Steve H. is a republican neo-con who wants to turn us into another United States. Senate reform is only the tip of the iceberg, and arguably many Canadians believe that the S.S. Canada is unsinkable with Captain Steve H. at the helm...

Edited October 30, 2008 by noahbody

[Hcheh]

Well, since you say Canada is a socialistic country, why have we not tanked like all other socialistic societies?? Why are we still alive?

If you wanted a totaly free enterprise economy, disband the government. Let capitolism be free. We don't need any more regulations on things like that now do we?

Yeah. Also, true free market capitalism inevitably leads to an oligarchy.

If you don't have a problem with Canada, I don't see why you could have a lot of problems with Obama's policies

By the way, the point still stands.. If you are criticizing Obama's policies for being too socialist, what do you call that 800 billion dollar bail out??

[GostHacked]

By the way, the point still stands.. If you are criticizing Obama's policies for being too socialist, what do you call that 800 billion dollar bail out??

I call it socialism, but others may not. But I doubt we will hear that from most of the posters here that for all intents and purposes, are on the right.

[msj]

Let us not forget that Adam Smith was a socialist too:

The principle that Obama evinced, which most economists would regard as unexceptionable, can be traced to Adam Smith. In “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), his seminal treatise on capitalism, Smith wrote:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Smith’s notion of reasonableness did not anticipate the Fox News Channel, however. Last Tuesday, Wurzelbacher appeared on that network, where he denounced Obama’s comments as “socialist.” He said that Obama “scared me,” because he “wants to distribute wealth.”

Edited October 31, 2008 by msj

[Liam]

Silence from the conservatives? That says an awful lot to me.

[kengs333]

So, what you're saying is you have a mental illness? You did say the following:

There's nothing false about what I've stated Harper's agenda is.

[August1991]

Let us not forget that Adam Smith was a socialist too:

So now Adam Smith from his grave supports Obama?

If you say so, msj.