The Floating House

One of the major challenges the next president faces,  is “how do we reprivatize institutions that have been socialized by the Bush administration?”

At a McCain rally in Ohio, Sara Cannorozzi explained that while her income is nowhere near the amount that would trigger a tax increase, she hopes it will be someday. She goes on to say, ”Obama wants to talk about giving pieces of the pie to everyone, but he never wants to talk about growing the pie,” she said. “I don’t want to share my pie. If I earn it, I want to keep as much as I can.”  All I can say is: Nobody puts baby in the corner, enjoy dying of diabetes and W.W.J.D. (and Yes, I just compared Obama to Jesus, but does that make them the same person?…Sure! Why not. Its all hypothetical anyways.)

As Sarah Palin said when discussing Obama’s response to tax-cuts “…here’s the zinger: Joe the Plumber suggested that sounded a little bit like socialism.” 

Now, is she really putting Joe the plumbers’ ideas before her own? Is she pointing the finger at Joe?

Say it ain’t so Sarah, say it ain’t so.

A McCain supporter asked Joe the plumber, who was the guest speaker at a McCain rally (he is now the new spokesperson and trusted source for the G.O.P.)  if a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel. The pseudo plumber hardly batted an eye and said,”I’ll go ahead and agree with you on that”.

Ahhhhh!!! Misinformed person alert! 

When did we start believing someone who lied bluntly to Obama and again, 5x worse, to the American people about his position as a soon-to-be business owner? Even worse, he’s not even a licensed plumber! Even more worse, he hasn’t even been paying his taxes!  And to top it all off as the biggest ‘even more worse’ stunt, he set up an impromptu press conference in front of his house to discuss tax policy, his disdain for Social Security, and his critiques of Barack Obama.

With his political insight, he could have a chance as our next vice presidential candidate, no doubt.

Surprisingly, Shepard Smith, one of Fox News’ major correspondents, pressed Wurzelbacher on his comments, reminding the repeatedly misinformed McCain supporter that Obama has consistently voiced support for Israel. Pressed several times to explain how he could agree with the conclusion that “Obama would lead to the death of the Jewish state”, Wurzelbacher was unable to come up with an educated answer.

Ahhhh!!! Misinformed person alert!! Sound the alarms!!

Back to the beginning of it all. The famous conversation. Only, the Republican Party left out more than what was actually presented. Here is the conversation  between Obama (O) and Joe (JTP) –

O: “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 at success too.”

JTP: “Seems like you would be welcome to a flat tax then,” Wurzelbacher said.

O: “You know, I would be open to it except for here’s the problem– with a flat tax you’d have to slap on a whole bunch of sales taxes on it. And I do believe that for folks like me who have worked hard but, frankly, also been lucky, I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there who — things are slow, and she can barely make the rent. Because my attitude is ‘if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s going to be good for everybody.’ If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re going to be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you. And right now, everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

So when Wurzelbacher brought up a flat tax, Obama responded by endorsing progressive taxation – the principle of taxing those with higher incomes at a higher percentage than those with lower incomes. And it is in that context that Obama said he wanted to “spread the wealth.”

Here’s the scoop: Progressive taxes do indeed spread the wealth a bit. But they do so much more modestly than government owning the means of production. Few serious policy makers — including McCain — consider progressive taxation socialist. In fact, on yesterday’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, McCain stood by a comment he made in 2000 that “there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more in taxes when you reach a certain level of comfort. You put into different, different categories of wealthier people paying, paying higher taxes into different brackets,” McCain told host Tom Brokaw, as if to say progressive taxes are a no-brainer.

So no, Obama’s tax increase on those making more than $250,000 would not represent a transformation of the U.S. system of government. His desire to “spread the wealth” through progressive taxation makes him no less a capitalist than McCain, or Lincoln. Palin’s allegation that Obama wants to “experiment with socialism” seems designed less to inform than to inflame.

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution spoke humorously of Joe’s background, saying, “Obama is about as far from being a socialist as Joe The Plumber is from being a rocket scientist,” (Chicago Tribune).  I think it’s hard for McCain, Palin or any of the G.O.P. mavericks for that matter, to call Obama a socialist when G.W.Bush is currently nationalizing banks.

Republicans have been pounding the socialist theme, believing it is their only hope and going for any accusation they can try a stab at, even though Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama hardly fits the classic definition of a socialist. Just as the PoliticFacts reporters said, trying to keep a straight face, “There are about as many definitions for socialism as comedian Jeff Foxworthy has for the term redneck.”

So, how do you know if you’re a socialist? Let’s take a look. Generally, it involves advocating government control over a country’s basic industries, like transportation, communication and energy, while also allowing government regulation of private industries.

You have to admit, right now, with our current economic situation, the idea of a little wealth sharing doesn’t sound so bad to the people whose 401k plans are down 40% and dropping.

Socialism involves state ownership by means of economic production and state-directed ’sharing of the wealth’. America’s democratic capitalist system is neither socialist nor truly free market; rather, it mixes the two, just as it has since the progressive income tax was introduced 95 years ago. Under it, the wealthy pay higher income tax rates than those who are less fortunate do. It’s a form of sharing the wealth.

President Bush and many other Republicans, including McCain, backed a gynormous federal government rescue of financial institutions this fall. The rescue plan coughed up more than $1 trillion so far to “private” banks and, in return, the gov’t took partial state ownership of the nine biggest institutions.

In August this year, a few weeks before being nominated for vice president, Sarah Palin said in an interview with Philip Gourevitch, a NewYorker Magazine journalist, that Alaska is “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.”

What?! Can I hear that statement again, Sarah? Did you say “Alaska is 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.”? All I can say Is — Say it ain’t so, Sarah.

In the United States, the term “socialist” has been closely associated with communism, claiming the socialist reform is equal to political poison. Since World War II and the Cold War, American political candidates who advocate socialism have not gotten very far in the system. The most notable exception- Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont. 

The senator was elected to Congress in 1990 as a socialist, and still remains both a socialist and a U.S. Senator today. He was the only independent member of the House during much of his service there and is one of two independent Senators in the 110th Congress, along with Joe Lieberman. He has been assigned to four major committees, including the c. on Environment and Public Works, c. on Natural Resources, and c. on Health and Education.  He introduced the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007. He established the energy efficient standards that we saw begin in 2008. Sanders has also criticized Alan Greenspan, who seems to be dealing with some backlash in our current economic state. In June 2003, during a question-and-answer discussion with then- Federal Reserve chairman, Sanders told Greenspan that he was concerned that Greenspan was “way out of touch” and “that you see your major function in your position as the need to represent the wealthy and large corporations.” 

Now look where Greenspan is standing among the economist communities….

Sanders consistently led his Republican challenger by wide margins in polling. He defeated the republican contender in Vermont by a 2-to-1 margin in the 2006 mid-term election. Not only does this show that the citizens of Vermont make an educated choice rather then a politically labeled choice, it also shows that someone who has taken on a socialist position can come out of the wood work and better the lives, education, and environmental future of all Americans with a bit of trust and respect from the public’s viewpoint, rather than the contender’s distasteful campaign (otherwise known as political poison. Arrgggg!!) 

So, when Joe the Plumber says “A vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel”, I would like to challenge that by saying “A vote for Obama is a vote for the death of american ignorance.”

*I am unsure of what public or political role I might hold over the next 20 years so please — BURN AFTER READING.

Tagged: 401k, Barack, Bernard Sanders, Bush administration, Greenspan, joe the plumber, John McCain, luminarieart, McCain, McCain rally, Obama, Palin, progressive tax, Samuel W, sarah Palin, say it ain't so, socialism, socialist, understanding socialism, Wurzelbacher