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October 29, 2008 06:04 AM UTC

Palin the Commie Pinko

  • 6 Comments
  • by: Go Blue

From the New Yorker, Like, Socialism

On October 12th, in conversation with a voter forever to be known as Joe the Plumber, Obama gave one of his fullest summaries of his tax plan. After explaining how Joe could benefit from it, whether or not he achieves his dream of owning his own plumbing business, Obama added casually, “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” McCain and Palin have been quoting this remark ever since, offering it as prima-facie evidence of Obama’s unsuitability for office. Of course, all taxes are redistributive, in that they redistribute private resources for public purposes. But the federal income tax is (downwardly) redistributive as a matter of principle: however slightly, it softens the inequalities that are inevitable in a market economy, and it reflects the belief that the wealthy have a proportionately greater stake in the material aspects of the social order and, therefore, should give that order proportionately more material support. McCain himself probably shares this belief, and there was a time when he was willing to say so. During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” a young woman asked him why her father, a doctor, should be “penalized” by being “in a huge tax bracket.” McCain replied that “wealthy people can afford more” and that “the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do.” The exchange continued:

YOUNG WOMAN: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?. . .

MCCAIN: Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist-Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine-that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

Palin is the only candidate running for the White House who has in fact, by her own twisted definition, imposed the heavy hand of Socialsm.  

Keith Olbermann eviscerated McCain and Palin tonight:

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6 thoughts on “Palin the Commie Pinko”

  1. Andrew Sullivan on “Socialism”

    A simple question. I’m a flat taxer, because I don’t believe the government has any business punishing people for getting richer. But I don’t think that people who support the kind of punitive taxation that Obama does or Cameron does in Britain or Reagan did in 1986 is a “socialist.” Is it now the McCain campaign’s assertion that anyone who isn’t for a flat tax is socialist? I should add that if Obama is a socialist, Richard Nixon must have been a commie.

  2. Alaska owns the resources.  When money is made from those resources, it goes back to Alaskans.  It’s not like the state is taking money from citizens through taxes then redistributing it (like Obama wants to do).

    Obama’s tax plan doesn’t do the same thing Palin is doing in Alaska.

    Now, when it comes to the ridiculous amount of federal money Alaska gets from Stevens and Young, yeah, that’s socialism.  But the oil dividend and the Alaska Permanent Fund isn’t, IMO.

    —

    And yes, I just registered today so please don’t waste your time whining about me being a troll or shill or sock puppet or whatever your term of the day is here on pols just because I disagree with you.  I’ve casually read the site for a couple of months and I promise I’m not trying to accrue any McCain points in pursuit of a toaster or anything else.  🙂

    1. Meanwhile, if the oil and gas industry didn’t work to get the resources out, no money would be made at all.  All of the cash the Alaskans get, they get from no effort whatsoever.

      Let’s word it differently:

      Someone is working while someone else does nothing and gets part of the hard earned money.  Welfare queens.

      1. From my perspective, I think the least “socialistic” thing to do is to give the money back to people that live there.

        So, for example, taking the money and instituting, say, universal healthcare for Alaskans would be inappropriately socialistic.  If the state is going to take the money, they might as well give it “back” to the people who are invested in the state.

        Regardless, I think this whole, “he’s a socialist!  No, you’re a socialist!” back and forth is pretty silly.  We mix plenty of economic and political ideas to come up with what is “our” system of governance.  The point is to govern most effectively, no?

        2. If anything’s a casualty of this election, it’s the definition of the word “socialism” and rational discussion of this country’s government and financial system.

          Alaska is a special case with oil revenues, and the issue isn’t simple.  The revenues are from Federal land use fees; the people of Alaska (or Louisiana, or Colorado for that matter) don’t own the land, but rather it is Federally controlled.  So Alaska and other oil states get money back from the Federal government – that’s money being re-distributed by the government, and one might say arbitrarily.  Add to that the fact that Alaska gets a much larger percentage of the royalties than do other states, and it’s easy to condemn the Alaskan “money tree”.  Of course, there are mitigating factors, too; the system wasn’t set up in a vacuum of thought.

          Guess I’m saying I don’t necessarily agree with you that it’s “less socialistic”, but good to have a nuanced discussion about it.

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