A Mandate for Spreading the Wealth

Two days before he lost the election, John McCain summarized what had become the central message of his campaign: "Redistribute the wealth, spread the wealth around -- we can't do that."

Oh yes we can.

The 2008 presidential election became something of a referendum on "spreading the wealth."

"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody," Barack Obama said on Oct. 12, in a conversation with an Ohio resident named Joe. The candidate quickly added: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

McCain eagerly attacked the concept, most dramatically three days later during the last debate. While instantly creating the "Joe the Plumber" everyman myth, McCain sharpened the distinctions between the two tickets while the nation watched and listened. He charged: "The whole premise behind Senator Obama's plans are class warfare -- let's spread the wealth around."

Obama has routinely reframed the issue in terms of fairness. "Exxon Mobil, which made $12 billion, record profits, over the last several quarters," he replied during the final debate, "they can afford to pay a little more so that ordinary families who are hurting out there -- they're trying to figure out how they're going to afford food, how they're going to save for their kids' college education, they need a break."

This fall, the candidates and their surrogates endlessly repeated such arguments. As much as anything else, the presidential campaign turned into a dispute over the wisdom of "spreading the wealth." Most voters were comfortable enough with the concept to send its leading advocate to the Oval Office.

In the process, the top of the GOP ticket recycled attacks on the principles of the New Deal. Like Franklin Roosevelt when he first ran for president in 1932, Barack Obama put forward economic prescriptions that were hardly radical. Yet, in the next few years, Obama's administration could accomplish great things -- reminiscent of the New Deal, with its safety-net guarantees and its (redistributive) progressive income tax and its support for labor rights and its mammoth commitment to public works programs that created jobs. Today, we need green jobs that cure our economy and heal our environment.

Let's be clear: Despite their rhetoric, even McCain and Palin know that spreading the wealth from greedy elites to the masses of people is quite popular in our country. That's why their campaign emphasized how Palin "stood up to the oil industry" in Alaska. She did it by imposing a windfall profits tax on big oil that put money into the hands of every man, woman and child in the state. If it's good for Alaska, why wouldn't it be good for America as a whole?

Obama and his activist base won a mandate for strong government action on behalf of economic fairness. But since election night, countless pundits and politicians have somberly warned the president-elect to govern from "the center." Presumably, such governance would preclude doing much to spread the wealth. Before that sort of conventional wisdom further hardens like political cement, national discussions should highlight options for moving toward a more egalitarian society.

Government policies in that direction would be a sharp reversal of what's been happening over the last few decades. No matter how you slice it, more of the economic pie has been going to fewer people.

"The top 1 percent of households received 22.9 percent of all pre-tax income in 2006, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s," the Working Group on Extreme Inequality reports. "This is the greatest concentration of income since 1928." And: "Between 1979 and 2006, the top 5 percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 87 percent. Over the same period, the lowest-income fifth saw zero increase in real income."

Current tax structures are steeply tilted to make the rich richer at the expense of others: "In the 2008 tax year, households in the bottom 20 percent will receive $26 due to the Bush tax cuts. Households in the middle 20 percent will receive $784. Households in the top 1 percent will receive $50,495. And households in the top 0.1 percent will receive $266,151."

We can reverse those trends. The time and opportunity have come to "spread the wealth."

When President Franklin Roosevelt heard pleas for bold steps to counter extreme economic inequality, he replied: "Go out and make me do it."

Barack Obama won the presidency after clearly saying that he wants to spread the wealth. Let's make him do it.

Comments

[blindhog]

On Friday's CNBC telecast, there was discussion of the big three and the foreign automakers who have factories in the south.

I say lets level the playing field. Strengthen the unions, let those workers in the south unionize. They have the right to good wages and the United States has the right to have their wares be competitive, particularly in our own country.

When we gutted union membership, we basically cut off our nose to spite our face. The "rich" concentrated the wealth for the few at the top while stealing from our middle class. The sad thing is the "rich" weren't smart enough to realize it would come back to hurt them.

[americaforme]

Plain and simple (spreading the wealth) is bring our American industries home. Giving the people back there jobs, that have been lost for the last thirty years. We can recover,by bringing our industries home.

[DaCoach]

I prefer to think of it as rebalancing the wealth. It's long overdue and eminently justified. But there's one thing you've got to give the GOP credit for, they're great at choosing the best sounding words to frame an argument.

[jerrypl]

Mr. Solomon is very right. This is a mandate for spreading the wealth, as well as taxing the wealth of the upper top tier wealth accumulators who have taken around $300-600 billion to off-shore havens. It is time to make these people pay their fair share. They made it off the taxpayer subsidizing their wealth accumulation. I have had enough of it. We need a ground-up Marshall Plan created NOW! President Obama needs to push Bush aside and take over. Bush told Obama that he "would help in any way he could." Help? Are you kidding, Bush? You screwed things up as badly as Herbert Hoover did. Just shut up and go away.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

[AngryOhioan]

jerrypl could you explain how the taxpayer subsidized their wealth accumulation. In 2006 the top 1% paid 39.89% of federal income tax which was over $388 billion. It is one thing to say that you think wealth should be redistributed more aggressively to prevent inequality but how can you claim wealthy people are subsidized?

[wittgene]

Ok. Here is one. When wealthy corporations or wealthy individuals build a NFL football stadium, NBA basketball arena, or a new MLB stadium, and they are given tax breaks (SUBSIDIZED) who pays for those tax breaks? The CITIZENS (the working poor) of that city do! T. Boone Pickens is worth 3 billion and he only paid 200 million in taxes. He can pay a little bit more. So your 388 billion will be increase by 3% more to "spread the wealth around". Thank you President Obama!

[Donkslayer]

Puuuunnnish the wealthy!!!!!!!

And then, when all their wealth is gone because they're not wealthy anymore, they stopped working as hard, or they moved to Ireland, we'll....

um...

well...

Let's do....

.....


.....doh.

[LouisvilleLiberal]

Ireland...what a joke. If they want to....I won't miss them. In fact, anyone who lives in the US only because they don't have to pay many taxes is free to leave.

[Chubbster]

Why is everybody targeting and pissed-off at wealth? The wealthy are smart, well educated and extremely hard working. People are jealous at heart, envious. I'm not saying that higher taxes are wrong at all, just that it won't produce a significant benefit to the Treasury. Punishing people who are successful or proclaiming they don't deserve it is a very slippery slope. Warren Buffett wants to pay higher taxes and he will. Any American today including wealthy left-wing liberals are perfectly free to pay extra taxes right now but only 0.01% of the population does.The wealthy didn't get where they are by being lazy. Very very few have done anything immoral or illegal to get where they are, very very few are the slime-balls portrayed in the popular imagination. At the same time it is true that a small group of Masters of the Universe set up our current disaster but we need to deal in specifics, not generalities.

[Rule Of Law]

It is the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer members of the Elite that threaten us all. The system is broken. Even those who call it socialism or "free" anything, are only dupes for the Oligarchs who control their ability to work, their income levels and their lives. Refusing to see it for what it is--indentured servitude to the banks and their interest scam--only help the already powerful cement their hold over our society.

[Yermammy]

Hear Hear! We're going to tear down these gated community pukes. We're going to Storm the Bastille!

[Rule Of Law]

Well, I wouldn't go That far--I believe in the profit motive and the ability of the individual to make as much as he can. I don't believe in a rigged game run by the same old families and corporations, fleecing the American public every ten years. I'm also a Teddy Roosevelt anti-monopoly supporter and we need regulations that prevent businesses from getting "so big they can't fail." If I want to make more money I can start a new business or invest in a handful of others, but dominating the market to the point of ruining our economy and the lives of millions of Americans must stop. I believe in a strong America, and this country is always strongest when the greatest number of citizens share in the creation and making of its wealth. When the difference between the top 1% and the rest is not so egregious.

[Michale32086]

Kewl!!!

Where does the line start for undeserved wealth and free handouts!???

I want to be first!!!

Michale.....

[lylo]

That's right!
The people who make a million dollars shouldn't have to pay taxes! I mean, why stop at giving them thousands of dollars in tax rebates just for being wealthy:
let's just not tax ANYONE who makes more than 300 grand a year!
We wouldn't want to give any handouts, afterall!
And you know that if you give any money to people making less than fifty grand a year, it's totally undeserved wealth!

But in all seriousness, you are s t u p i d !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rule Of Law]

And I love how he always dances around the point of the Federal Government giving Socialist aid to our largest corporations--you know, all that undeserved wealth and free handouts...it makes him seem immature and irrelevant if he isn't even willing to consider the implications of money for the rich and none for the poor.

[Michale32086]

Thank you for your concession that you have no logical or rational counter to my argument and must, therefore, resort to immature personal attacks.

Your concession of my superiority is appreciated, albeit irrelevant..

Michale.....