Re-redistribution of wealth

Sarah Palin spoke to an adoring crowd in Ohio this afternoon, and told them she was happy the truth about Barack Obama is coming to light in the 11th hour before the election. She literally said a tape exists of Barack Obama saying he plans to bankrupt the American coal industry. She also told the crowd that she and John McCain understand the depth of the economic crisis, and that the stakes are grave: "Your choice in this election is clear," she cheered. "Now is not the time to experiment with socialism."

Watching Sarah Palin accuse anyone of being a socialist is laughable. This is the governor who approved a windfall profits tax on oil companies in Alaska, and then sent every Alaskan citizen a $1,200 rebate check. That's right, she taxed big business and, one could say, redistributed the wealth to the citizenry of Alaska, whose households already have the seventh highest average income in the country, according to the US Census. So Sarah felt it was appropriate to redistribute wealth away from oil companies to Alaskan citizens, but thinks Barack Obama is a socialist for suggesting the richest Americans shoulder their share of the tax burden after eight years of flying high under Bush. Republicans have come out swinging in the final hours before the election, hinting at the s-word; Fred Thompson was on Meet the Press this morning and said Barack Obama and Joe Biden want to "redistribute the wealth".

Now, we all know "redistribute the wealth" is a catch phrase designed to convince the American people that Obama is a secret socialist just waiting to get into office so he can tank the economy and laugh about it with his liberal friends. It seems Sarah Palin has decided that with two days left before the election, she can say anything she wants and the American people won't have time to sort through what might be true and what is nothing more than blatant lies.

The truth is that America's wealth has already been redistributed; the past eight years have seen the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. A study by economists at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think-tank affiliated with the Congressional Budget Office, found that during the Bush years, the richest 1% of American households received 53% of all gains in income. Executive salaries and compensation packages went through the roof, while Bush used Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to suspend by executive order a law requiring large construction companies to pay the local prevailing wage for service jobs. In other words, a tragedy that destroyed New Orleans and created tens of thousands of internally displaced Americans, was used by the Bush administration to further help out their buddies in corporate America, while lowering wages for laborers willing to help rebuild New Orleans.

What Barack Obama has proposed is essentially a return to the tax structure that existed during the Clinton years; were you better off in the nineties than you are now? Sarah Palin just told Ohioans Barack Obama is proposing new spending without stating from where the money will come. This is a bold faced lie; the money will come from closing corporate tax loopholes, repealing the Bush tax cuts, and ending the war in Iraq, which has already cost the American people over 1 trillion dollars. Hey, if Barack wanted to get really crazy he could copy Sarah herself, and impose a windfall profit tax on oil companies: Exxon Mobil, for example, set a new national record for quarterly profit last week, maybe they'd like to help!

It's time to call out Republicans who accuse Obama of being a socialist. Only one person on either ticket has ever set up a scheme to tax big business and redistribute the money, and it's the one in the skirt screaming "socialist!"