The new meme being generated by the McCain campaign is that Barack Obama is a socialist. I guess their attempt to cast Obama as a terrorist didn't work, so with two weeks to go McCain needed a new narrative. The McCain campaign offers Obama's tax plan as evidence his socialist agenda.
First of all, I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Barack Obama believes in the central tenet of socialism; collective ownership of the means of production. Obama believes in a free market economy as a means of generating wealth, but acknowledges that an unregulated market is less than ideal (as the last month has shown).
Getting back to tax policy, Barack Obama's is based on the idea that the middle class is the backbone of our economy. So if tax cuts are to be given, they should favor the middle class. John McCain is clearly a supply sider; concentrate wealth at the top by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations in the hope that this wealth will trickle down to the rest of the economy.
The Center for American Progress recently released a study that compared the economies under the two most recent administrations (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush) that implemented policies based on supply side economics to the economy under Bill Clinton's administration. In short, the study found that many economic indicators such as investment, productivity, GDP, unemployment, income, hourly wages, and the federal deficit were, on average, as good or better during the Clinton administration. I should also point out that this study doesn't even include the current economic crisis we find ourselves in under the Bush administration.
So is Barack Obama a socialist? I don't really call restoring fairness to the tax code socialism, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest that a tax code similar to the one under Bill Clinton is better for our free market economy.
6 comments:
Obama isn't a socialist any more than McCain is, given that they both voted for the economic bailout package (loaded with some $140 billion in pork spending.) Not long ago McCain said he didn't believe in the government bailing out Wall Street, then he turns around and supports the bailout. It's just one more inexplicable display of his erratic character.
These are very good points, but do you think that Obama's tax plan is tantamount to socialism?
Speaking of the bailout, I actually think the Bush administration is doing the right thing now. They are directly injecting capital into the banks rather than purchasing their bad assets. In return the government gets preferred stock. So if the economy bounces back (which seems like a likely scenario), the taxpayer could possibly profit, or at least not take a huge loss.
Am I a socialist? LOL
No, I don't think Obama's tax plan is anywhere close to socialism. I see that accusation as just a last-ditch effort by the McCain campaign to bring Obama down, and I'm sure they've still got a few cards up their sleeves. Who knows what charge they could slap him with next. That he's gay, maybe? Well, he is always dressed really well.
Here's the underbelly of our country.
Warning: watch while sitting down. It's that infuriating.
Yeah, and the thing I don't understand about the strategy is that if painting Obama as a terrorist didn't work, why does the McCain campaign think that trying to convince voters that Obama is a socialist will work? I mean isn't a terrorist more terrifying than a socialist? The attack also assumes that people view socialism as a negative, which may not be true in some contexts (e.g. healthcare).
Clearly things haven't been going well for the McCain campaign. I really think that they're trying to throw absolutely anything they can at Obama now and hope that it slows his momentum just enough. Right now I'm honestly more concerned about Oklahomans defying all reason and reelecting Jim Inhofe, but that's another story.
What's wrong with Jim Inhofe? LOL
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