Sunday, October 26, 2008
Socialism?
You hear more and more about the fears of our nation being reformed and having socialist pieces. Everyone is saying that OBama's redistribution of wealth through taxes is straight out socialism. What do you all think, would it be good for our nations poor and middle class to gain back a little ground instead of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? The plan basically points out how people who make over $250k a year will be taxed a little higher instead of the taxes coming from the poorest of the nation.
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3 comments:
While I do not agree with many of the ideas that Obama has, I do happen to think that it is fair to tax the richer just a little more. The reason they are being taxed way below what they should is the mere fact that they have the ability to fight such legislation whereas the common man does not. It is only fair I say.
To be clear, a progressive income tax is not socialism. Socialism is public ownership and centralized planning of means of production. Progressive taxes have been integral to most capitalist societies, were defended by Adam Smith, and besides which have nothing to do with socialism. We've talked about it before in class, but we haven't really talked about it since the McCain campaign started up the most recent round of red-baiting.
There are exactly two pro-socialist measures that have been specifically proposed or endorsed by the candidates: 1. The use of government funds to buy equity stakes in investment banks (supported by Obama and McCain), and 2. Socializing oil resources (enacted and championed by Palin).
It's also worth clarifying: the Obama tax increase for those making above $250,000 is a marginal rate increase. What that means is that someone making $300,000 would have to pay an additional %3, but only on the overage. To be exact, the additional taxes would amount to $1,500.
I completely and thoroughly disagree with Obama's "fairness" excuse and Biden's "patriotic" garbage about taxing those with a higher income more...just because it's fair or patriotic. What Obama has successfully done is redefine the role of taxing power. The United States government is given taxing power to better schools, improve and build roads, build public offices and the like. The Federal government is not given that power so that they can determine what is "fair" or "patriotic" to dish out to people who they dub as "less fortunate." Yes, people are born under different circumstances, but for the government to decide that some of Bob's hard-earned cash should be given to Joe Schmo just because he has less moolah than Bob is nothing short of robbery. Back off government and fulfill your role as your were originally created. You don't see anything in the Framer's documents about Man A being able to point a gun to Man B's head and ordering him to give money to Man C because Man C doesn't have as much as Man A ...but via police power, that's exactly where we're headed.
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