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Obama and Socialism

Nov 1, 2008 at 9:52 PM

Alfred Holzheu in Obama, Socialism

I think the socialism argument regarding Obama is rooted in the fact that tax "relief" for one class and not all amounts to income redistribution, especially in light of the fact that the revenue will have to be made up somewhere. Since the other 5% of the people who already pay the lion share of the taxes, have the largest share of income, they know they are going to get soaked.

According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is "highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying most of the individual income taxes each year.

In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share.
Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.
Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush’s tax cuts with shifting a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.
The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27 percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent.
The White House has announced it will lobby Congress to pass legislation making most of President Bush’s tax cutting measures permanent.
A universal healthcare systems is almost by definition socialist (I know they deny that it is, but I can’t see it turning out any other way over the long term, given how it is structured).

Government is probably the worst place to concentrate capital to try and create real economic growth. And if the primary goal is to create JOBS, I don’t think giving a tax break to the people least likely to do so, especially since most do not pay taxes anyway, will do much. Wealth can only be created by mankind adding value to whatever he finds lying around, everything else is just a shell game. Giving the doers of the world an incentive is the only solution that makes logical sense to me. I also don’t understand the concept of taxing corporations, where do they think they get the money to pay the tax, from their consumers. Even the oil companies eventually have to transfer all that excess profit to individuals, or spend it on new equipment, either of which would be taxed or good for the economy.

Before you compare and contrast the Republican ticket, let me say that I think their candidate is pathetic also. His grasp of economic reality is as tenuous as the democratic candidate. (I am not using their names because I am sick of seeing them in print) and he could not negotiate himself out of a room full of gullible monkeys. I can’t believe that "my" party is putting this guy up.

Article originally appeared on Alfred Holzheu – online and verbose (http://www.holzheu.com/).

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