Wealth Redistribution- Not What You Think
June 28th, 2006 | by Ken Grandlund |Wealth Redistribution used to be a code word for liberal communist scumbag. If you listen to right wing talking heads, it still is. But I’m here to tell you that they are a bunch of liars and conmen. Oh, there’s plenty of wealth redistribution going on all right, but not the way they describe it.
Classic wealth redistribution refers to the transfer of money from those with the most towards those with the least. In our brave new ‘ownership society’ things have a way of getting upside down though, and wealth redistribution no longer means what it used to mean. Our CEO president and his Alice in Wonderland reality, has managed to make wealth redistribution work for his ‘base.’
Consider the following: Tax breaks under Bush have generally benefitted those with the most assets while tossing the regular Joe a small bone to chew on. Estate taxes benefit .25% of the public. Dividend tax breaks significantly benefit only those with millions in the market. (Trust me…my $30 worth of dividends last year didn’t push me into a new tax bracket.) Corporate tax loops and shelters benefit boardmembers and those big money dividend earning shareholders. Net result is a giant reduction in government receipts. And yet spending is at all time highs. Who makes up the difference? That’s right! You, your children, your grandchildren and your children’s grandchildren.
Our deficit is about to leave the ionosphere for other worlds and this president keeps on rolling, with the help of his congressional stooges. The spending habits of this president are like those of a gambling addict though, because he thinks he’s hiding the damage by funding his biggest boondockle off the books. Guess what Mr. President? We can all see what you’re doing and nobody is fooled. Iraq is a fiscal black hole, with no oversight on the no-bid contracts and no accountability to produce results. Of course the companies getting paid to ‘repair and rebuild’ places like Iraq and the Gulf Coast are owned, run, and managed by the same people who needed that estate tax rebate, the dividend tax gift, and the corporate tax loop holes. That’s right…the rich.
And remember, we’re not spending less as we reduce tax income. We’re spending more, more, more! And the middle class is paying for it. But that’s not enough. We need more, total wealth redistribution.
So the president has ushered in a budget that increases the cost of higher education while degrading primary and secondary education to a series of memory tests. Reduce education and you can reduce skills and pay. More money for the wealthy job makers, less for the average man, wealth redistribution.
The president has reigned over an era of job exportation and cheap labor importation with the net result being a lower wage standard for American workers. Lower pay to workers, bigger profit for wealthy job makers, less for the average man. More wealth redistribution.
The president has caused chaos in the Middle East, driving up the cost of oil in specific and all energy (all things really) as a result. High oil prices benefit multi-national energy corporations and directly suck the dollars out of wallets and purses of average citizens. Rapid wealth redistribution at work.
And let’s not even go into health care…
Bottom line is the net transfer of wealth in this country now flows upstream from the middle class to the wealthy class, leaving in its wake a demolished middle class, a surging poor class, and a very small, very wealthy upper class.
Now that’s what I call progress!
10 Responses to “Wealth Redistribution- Not What You Think”
By Paul Merda on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
Hear, Hear Ken!!! Abso-fucking-lutely true and I wonder how anyone can deny it. How long until we resemble a 3rd World country? 5, 10 maybe 15 years at this pace?? People are making less and have to spend more just for the necessities, it is a shame upon this country.
If supporting a progressive tax system makes me a Marxist, then so be it. Hell, we all know that the right-wing punditry loves to make accusations that don’t fit. I think I speak for many Liberals on this; none of want to see us all make the same amount of money before or after tax. What we do want is for the wealthy (who BTW are wealthy because WE make them that way) pay a bit more so that the rest of us can have it just a bit better. That millionaire dude isn’t gonna miss that $30-40k extra he’s paying in taxes, but that minimum wage worker sure will miss that $30-40 now needed to service our record debt… Assholes, everyone of them who thinks the rich “deserve” all of their money…
By Dr. Forbush on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
This is exactly right!
Mexico is trying to rid themselves of corruption and moving to create jobs and assistance for the poor, while the United States is moving in the opposite direction. In the not to distant future Americans could be the ones crossing the border to find jobs and aid in Mexico.
By steve on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
These arguments are good but they forget some things. First off, it takes X amount of dollars to run the government and the way we get that money (or the number substantially less than X) is through all these different taxes. The concept of taxing income however is really quite dumb whether we make 5 bucks an hour or 5000 an hour. We should be taxing what we spend. It makes more sense than arbitrarily setting tax rates on income. For example, our income rose 10K last year but we paid 5K more in taxes than the previous year Why? Weren’t there tax breaks all abound from Bush? Sure but they weren’t as substantial and we ran out of some automatic deductions that were based on income rather than as a reward, like deducting student loan interest or deducting college tuition for schooling required for my wife’s job. Other automatic deductions that teachers get (because of their serious lobbying) are no longer available or are pro-rated. And then there is this thing called the “alternative minimum tax” that prevents people from having an absurd amount of deductions. You can go on for hours.
I would leave this country, however if it punished someone for being rich. The last thing we need is a government notice in the mail saying, “You make too much money, we’re garnishing your wages”. If the government needs more money, they are obviously not spending it right. You may complain and holler about the politics of the war and what not but do we really need a National Park System or a Department of Transportation? Couldn’t we privatize these with some rules and actual competition that made programs like these less of a burden on the tax payer, no matter if they are rich or poor?
By Paul Watson The Cranky Brit on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
Taxing sales hits the poor as the necessities become less affordable. Adding 5 cents to an apple won’t affect people with a decent wage, but it could tip the balance against it for people on a very tight budget. Is that fairer than taxing someone with millions more? I don’t think so.
By Dr. Forbush on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
steve,
If you had more money then your 10K increase in income could have come from your stock dividends and your tax would have been cut instead. The tax cutting conservatives don’t care so much about income tax, they are more concerned with the stock dividend tax and the inheritence tax which mainly effect the billionares… Regular working people will still pay the same or more taxes under the conservatives…
By ken grandlund on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
Steve said: “Couldn’t we privatize (these) with some rules and actual competition that made programs like these less of a burden on the tax payer, no matter if they are rich or poor?”
Actually, Steve, that is exactly what Bush has been trying to do with the federal government since he came riding in to town on his big black horse. Privatization of government is not a good thing at all. When you turn government (which is about PEOPLE) over to business (which is about PROFIT) who do you think is going to get screwed?
Let’s look at some of the results:
FEMA: April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration’s goal of privatizing much of FEMA’s work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: “Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program….” he said. “Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level.”
Yes, that worked out pretty good, eh?
The VA: In September of 2005 a move occurred towards privatization when the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs approved S. 1182 (Sec. 10), which takes tax money from VA’s healthcare budget to study outsourcing jobs of VA healthcare workers. The study, with VA healthcare funds going to private consultants, could cost well over $160 million and lead to the loss of up to 40,000 VA jobs. Most Democrats voted against it, but it was approved and is a current study.
Dismantling and privatizing VA is a major effort, but the administration and the corporate sector continue to sell the idea to the public. Enabling privatization of the VA will ensure that to most Veterans needing the system it will become unaffordable, much as the current healthcare insurance system is unaffordable for most Americans. It may become an endless battle to keep the VA free of the pending hostile corporate takeover advocated by Bush & Co.
Hmmmm, what’s that again about supporting the troops?
Social Security: Ah yes…and think of all the profits to be made here by investment banking firms. Remember that they are part of that wealthy class too.
War: All that money to rebuild Iraq, yet so little done. Yes, privatization works fabulously in war time too!
I could probably go on and on, but privitizing is just another of the ways Bush is trying to redistribute the wealth of this country into the hands of the few.
Privatizing does not mean more effective or cheaper, it just means private. It means that parks can be kept only for the rich through use fees or high entrance prices. It means that private companies will own your streets and water districts and can pretty much do as they please. Remember California and energy privatization (AKA energy crisis?) While the public sector is very adept at many things, maintaining our social contracts isn’t one of them.
You are right that our government is abysmal at controlling the spending. Frankly, if the tax resources were used prudently we’d likely have nearly all we need to meet our social commitments, except of course for off-the-books war plans. But as part of America’s ‘middle class’ Steve, how you can continue to support the tax cuts, borrow, and spend economic policies of Bush astound me. He certainly isn’t doing you or your soon-to-be son any favors.
By anaveragepatriot on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
Your right Ken
I don’t know if you read a doctrine of fact/ Bush uncovered but check it out if you want to see what and why he is doing. http://www.anaveragepatriot.com
He is redistributing the wealth and the class structure as everyone is catching onto. He is making the haves have more and the have nots have less. That and the legalization of illegal alliens are a necessary part os his plan for new societal order. You can see the results of his followed doctrine on world order.
He is going to fail here and around the world. He is running out of time and it will all end in total disorder. Hopefully there will be somethying left to clean up. I’ll stop before I get carried away again. Takw Care!
By Mike V. on Jun 28, 2006 | Reply
The privatization scam has been a good one sold to the American public, who since babies, have been taught all the wonderful things about the “free market”.
Hardly a free market when one person, one company is running the show and doing so only for profit.
Look what happened in Bolivia when they “privatized” the water system there for the people. Their rates went up immediately. Happens in the US as well.
By steve on Jun 29, 2006 | Reply
I disagree (knowingly full well I’ll probably be called an idiot for it) because I believe when you allow competition, the prices get competitive. What Bush is doing, rules out competition. (Yes, I am disagreeing with Bush, shocker eh?) You don’t want to create a chunk of government who puts out stuff to bid and call it privatization, which is fully what Ken descibes Bush doing. You can’t have a monopoly and you can’t have one group control the whole thing. I do some bidding to government (local and state) for some sales and it never goes to the one who offers the most value for the buck. It goes to the “cheapest”, one of the bus yard’s buddies from high school, who in turn does a terrible job and ends up costing the people more.
Real life example, I sell glass cleaner to a bus yard and it took two years to actually acquire the business. I found that the bus yard was buying glass cleaner Ready To Use for 3 bucks a gallon. My glass cleaner is 15 bucks a gallon as a concentrate but I dillute mine 75:1. I was rejected first because they didn’t believe me and they were scared because I was 5 times as more per gallon. No concept of accurate dillution methods. I was then rejected because the dispenser I offered wasn’t UL approved. I settled on a UL approved dispenser, offered to install it for free and then was rejected again. I was so pissed off, I took pictures of their shelf space in their dinky warehouse showing how much room 300 gallons of jugs they were purchasing 3 to 4 times a month next to my 2, 5 gallon containers of glass cleaner I’d sell them a month that’d fulfill their consumption and finally they bought it. I charge them 150 a month and they were spending 900 to 1200 bucks a month, all tax payer money. That’s what I mean by privatization. Someone can do it better if you pull the politics out of it. Make the American people the consumer and not some bureaucracy. It’s that simple Ken.
By ken grandlund on Jun 29, 2006 | Reply
Steve- You’re trying to compare apples to oranges here. Government has almost always procured goods from private industry simply because they do not manufacture ‘things’ per se. Government provides services, and that is what is being privatized.
No argument here about the massive waste involved in the procurement process. It’s a corrupt pile of bureaucratic mess. And it can go hand in hand with providing a service, especially when a no bid contract includes both goods AND services, such as the ‘work’ being done in Iraq and the Gulf Coast. Other times, it is pirmarily the service aspects that are farmed out, at bloated costs, and with diminished service actually provided such as the VA system or Medicare (new prescription plan.)
So for venders like yourself who sell a particular product at a competitive price, you may feel like you have managed to ‘privatize’ a piece of government. Not so though, as you are just providing a product for a price, just as any other merchant does. That’s just part of the capitalistic system. Full privatization, like what Bush is imposing over many government services, is wealth redistribution from the massive middle class to the tiny wealthy class (by contracting taxpayer funds to corporate giants and ultimately their boardmembers and/or executive staff) as well as service degradation (since these companies ultimately care most about the bottom line). In the meantime, government itself becomes disconnected even more from the people who supposedly empower and direct it.