Most Americans and I don't care if Obama is a Muslim, if he's a terrorist, or even if he's a socialist.  Look what eight years of a fundamentalist Christian, capitalist, militant have gotten us!  We all just want someone who can get us out of this total and complete quagmire.

Long ago an American candidate for the Presidency said this:

"We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. … The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."

Who said that? Well it was that radical leftist and bloodthirsty bolshevik Teddy Roosevelt!  And McCain has always maintained Teddy Roosevelt is his hero.

Thanks for the context, Cass. I know the reasoning they've used is absurd, but understanding the fuller context makes the situation that much more transparent.

You are very dishonest. Obama promises the fundamental change. What you are talking about is not fundamental change. Voters deserve the truth about the fundamental change. You are trying to cover it up. .

Sunstein Is Dissembling   [Mark R. Levin]

Cass Sunstein and others, like Bruce Ackerman, have been touting this positive law stuff for years.  They advocate institutionalizing the liberal agenda through the courts, particularly the 14th Amendment.  Equal rights would be expanded to include "economic justice," i.e., the equal (or more equal) provision of wealth, education, etc., among the citizenry.  The agenda would not be subject to electoral results or congressional influence because it would be imposed from the judiciary.  This is an extremely radical proposition, completely at odds with the Constitution itself and the Framers' intent.  And Sunstein and Obama know that the public would be appalled with their views if honestly presented to them.  So, Sunstein denies it — even characterizing it as conservative, and Obama's spokesman calls the 2001 interview a distraction.  It is neither.

corner.nationalreview.com/post

Easy to distort, easier to politicize, complex to explain and on (recent) message- all in, a perfect Republican talking point. The Obama campaign would do well to come up with a strong rejoinder that doesn't require eight paragraphs to lay out, before it lays out anything at length. Might consider starting with this: www.youtube.com/watch

It is difficult to divorce *every last trace* of redistribution from court decision.  I mean, campaign finance seems to be about 1st Amendment rights, and this will teach judicial extremists to conlfate the rights guaranteed in the Constitution with the financial needs of the party with whom they are bedmates.    But I agree with Sunstein on substance here; the court has no inherent redistributive power.  

Oh, and Cass, meet jacobt1.  He's going to be your blogging equal here very soon, so make friends now!

WaltB said

Eght years of a fundamentalist Christian, capitalist, militant have gotten us a  recession.

With  Obama, we'll never have a recession anymore.  Central planning will prevent all future recessions.  

Baaah.  By "inherent", I meant "primary".  More ritalin, please.

jacobtl, you're quoting a group of people that no something about dishonesty, using an example of their dishonesty all while accusing Mr. Sunstein of dishonesty (though you do get points for symmetry in the making of an extremely obtuse argument).

Let me see if I can't clear this up for you. Levin says, "Sunstein and Obama know that the public would be appalled with their views if honestly presented to them.  So, Sunstein denies it — even characterizing it as conservative". But contrary to Levin's demonstrably false assertion, (all you have to do is hit the scroll lock and up arrow), what Sunstein described as conservative was Obama's quote from that interview that, "the Constitution 'is generally a charter of negative liberties.'". That statement of Obama's cited by Sunstein, as you and Levin appear to be unawares (or at least you, in the former case I'm betting wanton dishonesty), is an explicit rejection of the legal/Constitutional basis for what Levin calls, "institutionalizing the liberal agenda through the courts".

So this is a pretty ham handed attempt at distorting the content of the interview and Mr. Sunstein's post. The unraveling of the hysterical right continues unabated...

In this video, John McCain vigorously defends a progressive tax code and advocates cutting taxes for middle-income "working" Americans "first" to a student who views progressive taxation as unfair and socialistic:

www.youtube.com/watch

According to McCain's argument today, he was a socialist, and an Obama socialist at that (in the sense of prioritizing middle-income tax relief).

The contrast is remarkable and sad.  The McCain of that video is the McCain sensible people of all political stripes once warmed to.  That McCain is running now, except his name is Obama.

Obama and Judicial Redistribution

Wendy Long is right to be alarmed about what that 2001 radio interview reveals about Barack Obama's thinking.  I would add that this impulse to stuff "positive rights" into the Constitution, and to attempt to enforce them judicially, is one of the pet projects of Cass Sunstein, now at Harvard Law but one of Obama's colleagues at Chicago Law, and one of Obama's most ardent (one might even say sycophantic) admirers.  The admiration appears to be mutual, to judge from that radio interview.  Here is a review in NR from 2004 by Tom G. Palmer of Sunstein's book advancing this argument.  The Obama-Sunstein view is logically a mess, constitutionally a trip through the looking glass, and politically a prescription for tyranny.

bench.nationalreview.com/post

Cass Sunstein forgot one other significant instance where the government redistributes wealth: funding two wars in the Middle East. For some reason McCain is furious that Obama would redistribute wealth to fund a health care system, but when it comes to taxpayer's funding John McCain's congressional delegations to Iraq for his dog-and-pony show briefings, its somehow legitimate. The hypocrisy here, on so many levels, is nauseating.

"In this video, John McCain vigorously defends a progressive tax code and advocates cutting taxes for middle-income "working" Americans "first" to a student who views progressive taxation as unfair and socialistic:"

Yes, we need a progressive tax code . However, Obama proposes that a family with the taxable income 160K will be taxed 40% federal + 10% state + 7% SS + Medicare.  It's not progressive taxation , it's a confiscatory  taxation . If you count inflation, we've never had such level of taxation in US.

I remember "Odyssey," the Chicago public radio show that taped this interview; it was a long-form conversation, with the host, calls, and just ONE guest for an entire hour. It was gloriously intelligent and, honestly, often more compelling than my University of Chicago classes (no offense to Cass). Of course idiots like Drudge (or, more likely, someone at the RNC doing oppo) can't stomach that and instead choose to hack apart an hourlong conversation in order to grab some hilariously out of context sound bites.

I almost pity the RNC oppo hack here. I did that job years ago and just had to fast-forward through quick talk-radio bits to hear the nutjob Republican candidate spouting off snippets of crazy-talk. The RNC counterpart has to sift through law-review articles and hourlong academic interviews, then try to splice together sentences that sound ever so vaguely sinister.

paytonc:  I too remember Odyssey fondly.  Gretchen went off to get a law degree I gather.

Just so it's on the record, everything Jacobt1 said in his latest post is wrong, except for "we need a progressive tax code."  Such a family would not see their taxes go up under Obama's plan, and they would not be in the proposed 39.6% top bracket.  I think they're in the 28% bracket, which Obama proposes to make permanent.  For that family, Obama's tax plan would be no more "confiscatory" than Bush's.  What Jacobt1 means by counting inflation is beyond me.  We're talking about tax rates, which are percentages of income, and they're historically low anyway.

jhildner,

Read

www.hudson.org/index.cfm

"What Jacobt1 means by counting inflation is beyond me.  We're talking about tax rates, which are percentages of income, and they're historically low anyway."

What was 250K, inflation ajusted, during JFK presidency  and what was the tax rate?

"What was 250K, inflation ajusted, during JFK presidency  and what was the tax rate?"

A bit more than $36,000.  The tax bracket in 1961 for married couples filing jointly with that amount in taxable income was 53 percent (going down to a relatively high 20 percent on the first dollar).  The top marginal rate was 91 percent.  Under Reagan, the top marginal rate was 50 percent.  Under Obama's plan, it would be 39.6 percent, as it was under Clinton.  As I said, tax rates are historically low, dramatically so on the top end, and would remain relatively low under Obama's proposal.  He's proposing to let the highest-end Bush tax cuts expire, resulting in the top rate going up by 4.6 points and the second highest by three points.  That's it.  By comparison, John Kennedy was a raving lunatic Communist.  Given his evident ideological sympathy with Russia, it's hard to understand why there was such a fuss about those missiles in Cuba.

p.s.  Who opposed those high-end  Bush tax cuts?  Commrade McCain.  As Obama said in a fit of understatement, it's a "pretty implausible argument" that he (and you) are advancing.

I read your link.  It fails to mention that Obama would adjust the second highest bracket threshold so that no joint-filing couple making $250,000 in taxable income (and no single person making $200,000) would be affected by allowing the Bush cuts in the top two marginal rates to expire.  Thus, under the Obama proposal, the $250,000 earner does better under Obama than under Clinton.

If Obama doesn't believe in wealth redistribution, I need to rethink my vote.

I find it deeply sad that we even have to spend our time anymore debunking Republican smears and obstructionism. Cass Sunstein should be able to hit F9 on his keyboard to demolish these arguments. Perhaps Microsoft can offer that as a plug-in.

Jacobt1

"Obama proposes that a family with the taxable income 160K will be taxed 40% federal + 10% state + 7% SS + Medicare.  It's not progressive taxation , it's a confiscatory  taxation . If you count inflation, we've never had such level of taxation in US."

HA, HA, HA, HA.  Wrong again.  Your numbers are wrong, Your statement about Inflation is wrong and your conclusion about confiscation is wrong.  And the majority of jews are not snobs.

It's interesting that Sunstein goes all the way back to an obscure radio interview in 2001 to defend Obama. Also, he never mentioned Obama's recent comment about "speading the weath."  I'd like Sunstein to define the difference between the two; they sound the same to me. .  

The word "redistribution" is easily politicized, but, in terms of actual policy, it seems to include the Social Security Act (which redistributes wealth), the Americans with Disabilities Act (which also redistributes), educational reform that would improve schools in poor areas, Head Start programs, statutes allowing parental leave, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the progressive income tax, and much more. Almost all candidates for public office (including Senator McCain) favor significant forms of redistribution.

But Senator Obama has explicitly expressed his intention to dramatically increase many taxes, e.g. the payroll tax, to provide for tax credits and tax cuts for the less affluent.  The fact that he may be redistributing taxes through uncontroversial and well-established programs such as Social Security does not neutralize the charge that he is, at the very least, the most aggressive redistributor of recent Presidential candidates (when one considers the sheer magnitude of his proposed tax increases).

Isn't the income tax, in some sense, a tax on your employer. I mean, if my taxes were reduced such that I netted an extra few thousand a year, couldn't my employer easily reduce my wages by that amount, on the correct logic that I was willing to work for that amount before and now that I am netting more I can absorb a pay cut with no change to my former net income?   Why would I then quit since my net income remains unchanged?  I mean, when I decide to take a job, I am already making the value calculation based on what I am going to NET, not GROSS and if I pay less taxes, I would logically settle for less income if my NET remains the same.  Right?

Norton Garfinkle's "The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth:  The Fight for a Productive Middle-Class Economy" should be required reading, as it, in my view, gets to the heart of this whole debate.

Steve Forbes was on the radio the other day touting McCain's two-rate tax plan.  It's not as good, in Forbes' estimation, of Forbes' own flat-tax plan (Cato-approved!!!!!), but is far preferred to letting the Bush tax cuts expire in his view.  The flat-tax is and always has been a sop to the rich, which translates into access to greater wealth.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but Obama isn't about re-distributing "wealth."  He seeks to make the tax system more progressive and in that effort, creating greater access to wealth generation by the middle-class.  That comes in two ways:  (1) allowing the middle-class, rather than the upper class, to keep more of their income which they can use to better their station and (2) funding "hand-up" government programs to prepare the next generation of middle class denizens for the challenges of the future.

Joe the Plumber and his ilk toss out the buzzword (and Obama clearly helped him with an off-the-cuff malaprop) "redistribution" and all of a sudden the ghost of Joe Stalin is landing at Dulles International.

From a Canadian journailist:

....Taxes ease our daily lives in ways we take for granted. They pay for new combed-concrete sidewalks, traffic lights, sewers, garbage pickup, nicely dressed diplomats so we don’t show up at the G-8 in golfing shorts, ferries, fish in general, nuclear power plant inspection, protecting the provincial flower (“Leave that wild rose alone, ma’am), libraries, white-coated people who spring into action when you contract flesh-eating disease, building codes, schools, dangerous-toy advisories, keeping cable companies in line, clean air, truck inspections for airborne wheels, loan forgiveness, autopsies, massage therapy, campgrounds, divorce, licence plates so you can track the guy on the cell phone in his Humvee who hit you, fluoridation, teacher training, privacy, universities, fair elections, fire trucks, child guardianship, hazardous waste control, name changes, hostels, museums, protocol (see golfing shorts), trees, zoning, high-tech passports, standards in general, notary publics, noise control, organ donation, human rights, disability, drainage, bingo permits, boating safety, French language services, neighbour encroachment, aboriginal business aid, art galleries, adoption, jury duty, cemeteries, soil quality, spills response, tattoo parlour inspection, bank deposit insurance, street lighting, commercial ship registry, victim assistance (“there, there”), SIN numbers, joint rescue (water and air, nothing to do with knees), aerial mapping, pesticide disapproval, and savings bonds....

Without taxes, you’d have to do all of the above yourself. Sure, you can contract it to the private sector, but if you’ve ever watched the Sopranos, the Mob isn’t actually any good at garbage collection. Landfill is just a means of corpse disposal.

Fine, cut my taxes and I’ll pick a task. I’ll take “spills response” and use recycled paper towels. Oh, you say the spill covers 2,000 hectares and it’s sticky, oily and toxic? I thought you meant coffee. Somebody call the feds. I’m a taxpayer!

Here in Canada, we believe in the public good, as in “good for all the public.” (I’m quietly humming “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” as you read this.) We don’t believe in private affluence and public squalor. We like to balance those two things.

Whenever you get upset by taxation, think of an ill-considered purchase. Then figure out what that cash could have contributed to, had it been in government hands. A gleaming new hip for my mother? Excellent CBC television? An ice rink for kids on the reserve?

Paying taxes is a means to a good end. Can we do it with a lighter heart, please...

And note Sunstein's book: The Cost Of Rights: Why Liberty Depends On Taxes, which makes the same case, but without this journalist's smug self satisfaction, even thought she's right.

Some Americans (who shouid know better) conflation of public expenditure for the public good from progressively scaled  tax revenues with socialism confounds and disappoints me.

Of course, there are some logical flaws to the socialist-redistributor argument as it applies to Obama.

pawlowski:  Sunstein didn't choose the interview.  Obama's opponents did.  As Sunstein clearly says at the top, he is responding to the argument that *this interview* is somehow damning for Obama.

There isn't any difference between "spreading the wealth" and "redistribution."  The point is that the concept of redistribution through things like a progressive income tax, social insurance programs like Social Security, and the earned income tax credit are *uncontroversial* and are widely supported by every major politician from both parties.  Under McCain's current argument, McCain is a socialist, George Bush is a socialist, Ronald Reagan was a socialist, and every single president and mainstream politician for the past hundred years has been a socialist.

Take the income tax:  You could argue that *any* government taxing and spending is redistributing wealth, because it appropriates "private" money for public purposes.  In a sense, the only way you could possibly avoid redistributing wealth is if every person received a dollar back in value for every dollar paid in taxes.  Of course, taxes don't work that way.  You pay the same amount for your fire dpeartment regardless of whether you derive a direct personal benefit from it or not.  Such taxes are justified for many reasons, not least because nobody makes any "private" money in the absence of a well-governed, secure society.

But, put that aside.  The more common argument is that a *progressive* (graduated) income tax is redstribution but a flat tax (same rate across the board) is not.  Even if we buy the argument that a flat tax doesn't redistribute wealth, *we have never had a flat federal income tax.*  It's never been proposed by any serious contender for high office I'm aware of (unless you count Forbes as a serious contender).  From the very beginning, our tax code has taxed greater wealth at higher rates -- often at *much* higher rates than those we have today or those that Obama is proposing.  (Under Eisenhower and Kennedy, for example, the top rate was *91 percent.*  In 1961, that $250,000 couple, adjusted for inflation, paid 53 percent on the last dollar, much more than Obama's proposed 39.6 percent.  I'm not going to bother calculating effective rates, but you get the idea.  Tax rates 50 years ago were *much, much* higher than we're used to today.  They soaked the rich more, too, and soaked the very rich a lot more.)

The main thrust of Obama's tax plan is to allow the Bush tax cuts for the top two marginal rates (now 33 percent and 35 percent) to expire (making them 36 percent and 39.6 percent respectively, where they were before 2001), make the remaining Bush tax cuts permanent, and expand low- and middle-income tax credits.  (That's oversimplifying.  For example, Obama says that despite those adjustments on the top end, that $250,000 couple, now in the second highest bracket, would not be affected by allowing the top end Bush tax cuts to expire, I'm assuming by bumping up the threshold for that bracket, now $201,000 for a married couple.  But that's the gist.)

This proposal is thoroughly within the mainstream.  It goes a *little* more in the progressive direction than we're at today, just as McCain goes a *little* more in the opposite direction.  It basically undoes the top-end Bush tax cuts and gives the vast majority of Americans an additional break.  Nothing remotely radical here.  McCain's plan redistributes wealth too, just not as much, and gives needless additional breaks to wealthy people that they're not asking for and that we can't afford.

What Obama was trying to say to Joe the Plumber is that his plan would help his theoretical business because it would give him more customers who can afford to pay for his services.  It will help real Joe the Plumbers, that is, aspiring small business owners, by allowing them to save more and buy or start their businesses sooner.  It exapands opportunity, enhances economic security, and stimulates the economy.

"Senator Obama has made a lot of promises. First he said people making less than 250,000 dollars would benefit from his plan, then this weekend he announced in an ad that if you're a family making less than 200,000 dollars you'll benefit — but yesterday, right here in Pennsylvania, Senator Biden said tax relief should only go to "middle class people — people making under 150,000 dollars a year." It's interesting how their definition of rich has a way of creeping down. At this rate, it won't be long before Senator Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just 42,000 dollars a year should get a tax increase. We can't let that happen"

corner.nationalreview.com/post

The truth is, Obama, as always, is not being honest. It's impossible for the richest 5% to pay  West Europe level of welfare benefits for the rest of 95%

.

Yes Basman, and perhaps the most important point is that there is no government without taxes, and there is no freedom without government.  Governments create and enforce property rights, criminal laws, and personal liberties, among other things.  Freedom as we understand it requires government.  It's created by government and nurtured by government.  Without government, you wouldn't be left alone.  Your neighbors would kill you and take your stuff.  Talk about eminent domain!

Today 50% of population pay 1% of taxes how much more :progressive" can you make the system?

Obama  wants to tax corporations and redistribute their profit to middle class so that they can go to Wall-Mart to buy products from China. As  American companies are getting less profitable, American pension funds will invest abroad including China. People will lose jobs. Obama will have to tax corporations more to redistribute more money to people losing jobs.

Wilson, Roosevelt and now Obama -- all their ideas sprung forth from the work of John Dewey, the most important liberal philosopher of the 20th century. Dewey held that "natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology," and that "organized social control" via a "socialized economy" was the only means to create "free" individuals. Dewey proposed that statism be taught as a kind of civic religion in our schools so that Americans could be raised to see the government as the solution to all of our problems.

Dewey lives on too in the education reform ideas espoused by former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, often invokes Dewey when justifying his own dream of indoctrinating public school students in "social justice." Obama doesn't condone Ayers' '70s-era bombings, but he certainly subscribes to Ayers' educational vision. In fact, Ayers' educational work is the primary defense for the candidate's association with an unrepentant terrorist.

Blowing away the dust and cobwebs from ancient wares doesn't make them new. Save for his skin color, Obama doesn't represent anything novel. Rather, he symbolizes a return to an older vision of the United States that was seen as the "wave of the future" eight decades ago.

I for one have no desire to go back to that future.

www.latimes.com/.../la-oe-goldberg28-2008oct28,0,4752126.column

Just a quick note:  I think everybody understands the need for taxes, particularly for all the services that are necessary for the overall good of the society, e.g. highways, armed forces, regulation of interstate commerce, etc.  I don't think this is controversial.

What is controversial is Obama's explicit pledge to increase taxes on the wealthiest so as to effect a transfer of that wealth to the middle class.  This is seen as nothing less than welfare when applied to those who do not even pay income taxes.

I suppose that if Obama wanted to achieve the same goal without ruffling as many feathers, he could have downplayed the link between "tax increase on the rich" and " tax cuts for the middle class."  But since Obama fully intended on playing the class warfare card, he always connects the two (Meanwhile, Michelle orders up caviar from room service.).

dcheng3:

"(Meanwhile, Michelle orders up caviar from room service.)"

Please.  That story was debunked and retracted 7 days ago.  www.observer.com/.../consider-posts-lobster.  Try a more honorable approach to a reasoned argument.

The issue appears to me to be that the McCain campaign found it necessary to comb through 8 years of Obama's public statements to find anything to do with wealth redistribution - and then found it necessary to reconfigure and misrepresent the statements in a manner that borders on lying.  Obama's off-the-cuff comment of "spread the wealth" (while unfortunate in that it strikes fear in the stolid anti-communists of the 1950s), strikes me much more as of comment that could have been, "Dude - if you're making 250 grand a year - you should be able to afford to pay a little more in taxes," than it does a statement of socialist revolution.

dcheng3:  Do you find a progressive tax code controversial?  Do you find prioritizing middle class tax relief controversial?  (p.s.  Everyone pays taxes.  Don't forget the payroll tax, sales tax, state and local tax, etc.)  Anyway, if you find those things controversial, which is what you're basically saying, tell it Comrade McCain:

www.youtube.com/watch

"The issue appears to me to be that the McCain campaign found it necessary to comb through 8 years of Obama's public statements"

It's racist. It has never been done before against a white politician.

Thank you jacobt1.  Someone is paying attention to the substance and intention of the  article’s argument. Sunstein is dishonest in his explication of Obama's views.  He intentionally, and necessarily for his arguments sake, leaves out Obama's statement in the 2001 interview that a legal theory could easily be crafted to support the Supreme Court's involvement in redistributive justice as a tool of social policy.  Obama’s concern seems to be that it is not a practical and dependable way of implementing redistributive policy and so the Civil Right Movement’s heavy reliance on the courts to accomplish such ends was imprudent. This is quite a different perspective on Obama’s interview than the one Sunstein proposes.  Could it be that Obama’s legal theory is the same as the one that Sunstein himself crafts along with Stephen Holmes in their book "The Second Bill of Rights"?  See Tom Palmer’s 2004 review of their very flawed thinking at:

www.nationalreview.com/.../palmer200503011045.asp

Those above who can hardly wait for higher tax rates completely ignore the negative impact on the cost of investing.  If the cost for investors goes up, investing will go down.  Jobs will go down.  The number of people unemployed and in need of public assistance will rise.  This will necessitate even higher taxes and so goes the vicious circle in which European countries find themselves.  Once their largest market succumbs to this flawed thinking, their meager growth rates of the past, accompanied by a now standard near double digit rate of unemployment, will only worsen.  As inflation picks up a head of steam, and it will as a consequence of Bernake's loose money policies, families in the middle class will find within a few years that their nominal incomes qualify them as The Rich.  This is similar to the AMT problem today.  (How about applying tax rates to real rather than nominal income?  But no self-respecting politician would ever pass up such a bonanza in tax revenue. Witness the 1970s.)

dcheng wrote: The word "redistribution" is easily politicized, but, in terms of actual policy, it seems to include the Social Security Act (which redistributes wealth),

Errrr... Social Security redistributes INCOME...  

Jacobtl:  The only reason that number sounds impressive is that it masks the *income inequality* that is the real cause of it.  (BTW, I'm not saying "income inequality" as though incomes must be made equal.  I'm just pointing out facts.)  The bottom 50 percent of the population makes *below $30,000* in adjusted gross income (AGI), which is gross income minus "above-the-line" deductions, and makes just 13 percent of total AGI.  These numbers are from the Tax Foundation, a group that advocates conservative tax policies:  www.taxfoundation.org/.../22652.html.  That means that, with a flat tax, 50 percent of the population would pay 13 percent of the total instead of 3 percent.  (I'm not sure if your number excludes tax credits as mine does, which may account for the 1 percent.  Or maybe, you're just getting it wrong, which wouldn't be the first time.)  That's not wildly progressive.  The top one percent, making above $365,000 AGI make 21 percent of total AGI and pay 40 percent in income taxes.

(This socialistic state of affairs, by the way, is all the doing of Comrade Bush.)

Needless to say, the code could be a bit more progressive, and frequently has been.

But I'm getting a tired of pointing out why everything you say is inaccurate.  The sad truth, Jacob, is that insofar as you want to portray Obama's policies as a radical departure from mainstream policy, the facts are simply not on your side.  You must resort to false, misleading and generally dishonest arguments, just as McCain-Palin has done.

There is no line of principle that Obama's plan crosses that McCain's plan does not also cross.  Both plans redistribute wealth downward, as did Bush's tax plan, as you see.  Why don't you just admit it:  You favor, as a matter of principle, a flat tax.  You oppose, as a matter of principle (and perversely so) any social insurance or any refundable income tax credits or generally any government attention to legitimate hardship in our society.  You oppose economic security, you oppose social security, and you oppose health care reform.  These are the views of an extreme economic libertarian, which I think you are but are afraid to admit.  Why would you be afraid?  Because it is a marginal minority view that is not seriously advocated by anyone in a position of power, including John McCain or Sarah Palin.  Yours -- not Obama's -- are the views that are extreme and well outside the mainstream.

klfoster said

" If the cost for investors goes up, investing will go down. "

investing will no go down, it will be redirected abroad

jacobt1, Yes, much investment will be redirected abroad just as manufacturers have migrated to countries where the investment costs are lower.  There will still be investment in the U.S. as long as their is demand for products and services that cannot be transferred abroad.  But in those cases prices will have to rise to compensate for the higher costs.  And there will be less money to invest in the U.S.

klfoster and jacobtl make a classic supply side argument- that investors will flee if income tax rates or capital gains tax rates increase. You would think then that the opposite would hold too: that investment would have boomed under Bush, given his dramatic cut to capital gains and dividend tax rates and lesser cuts to marginal income taxes, right? You would be badly wrong.

The economy under Bush experienced unprecedentedly low corporate investment as a fraction of GDP. Can you explain that fellas? Can you explain how you can continue to be so self-assured in your preachings of policies that have lead to eight years of anemic job growth and two separate recessions, the latest of which could rival the 1930s before its all said and done (also coasted into under a Republican president)? Or did that paradox not occur to you?

Tell you what, I'll give it a stab. Turns out that there is more to 'cost for investors' than tax rates. Turns out an economy not (or less) subject to energy shocks, not dependent upon foreign capital to finance investment and consumption, i.e. with decent savings rates, i.e. without dramatic public deficits on top of private ones, and with an efficient health care system as opposed to the world's most inefficient, a performing education system turning out qualified workers as opposed to a woefully underperforming one that makes companies dependent upon foreign labor and a solid physical infrastructure is also pretty important to the "cost of investing", which includes the risk of investing. Perhaps those things factor into capital formation and business decisions, and account for why the empirical record doesn't stack up with the theoretical simplicity... no?

And while you ponder that, you could consider the virtue of rationing out the demagoguery at least until the rate of increase on foreclosures and job losses, (as suffering from the policies of an orthodox Republican), drops back into the single digits.

I Majorajam,

Are you saying that under Bush our education and physical infrastructure  got so much worse?

that it can explain  unprecedentedly low corporate investment .

I Majorajam, We are getting off topic from the Sunstein article, nevertheless, I will respond.  I don't have the figures for investment as a % of GDP but I will say that the steady increase in productivity would be the major causative factor.  That is, it took less investment to produce more income.  This growth in productivity has been going on for quite some time now but it has been quite pronounced over the last several years.  You actually are making a supply side case. The amount of investment did rise during the Bush (and Clinton and Bush and Reagan) years.  Actually the cost of capital is not just a supply side concept, it is fundamental to understanding economics from any perspective except that of a blind thinker.

You are right that taxes are but one element of the cost for investors.  Our failure to generate cheaper energy over the past several years is another factor.  Waiting for the green revolution, most of which is still in R&D, is part of this unnecessary and self-inflicted increase in the cost of doing business. (Talk about transferring wealth abroad!)  The burden of employers footing most of the bill for health care insurance rather than turning it back to the individual, as we do with auto and life insurance, is another cost of doing business.  The McCain tax credit plan and the opening up of insurance competition across state lines is one option.  Another would be less state by state government regulation of health insurance (i.e., applying the Commerce Clause of the Constitution) would result in a big cost reduction in health insurance.  You are not going to get an efficient education system under a Democrat regime, as their teacher union political allies will ensure the status quo and certainly guard against innovation.

You and Sunstein and Obama may see a benefit in increased government regulation but I assure you it is not an economic benefit in terms of overall economic growth.  And please do not use the ongoing economic crisis as an example.  Its foundation was undue intervention by the Fed in keeping interest rates low and the decision under Liberal pressure to have Fannie and Freddie lower their credit standards (increasing the risk to taxpayers) to acquire and then package for distribution to the investment community subprime mortgages.  This was a precondition for the existence of subprime mortgages, sending the banking community a signal that they could also lower their credit standards and dump their mortgages onto the unwary taxpayer.  (The unwary tax payer is a core element of Liberal domestic policy.)  So much for roads paved with good intentions!  The Welfare Effect!

The Joke is on Who?  This is a "joke" written by Professor of Economics David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D., at the University of Georgia.  It is a basic lesson in economics.

"Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier."

"Do you find a progressive tax code controversial?  Do you find prioritizing middle class tax relief controversial?"

No, obviously a progressive tax code is not controversial.  I don't even know if middle class tax relief is all that controversial.  What is controversial is the way that Obama has decided to cast his tax plan--as a redistributive scheme involving the transfer of wealth from one group directly to another.

This, to me, is not the same thing as the rich paying a larger share of the taxes than the middle class.  I can see the legitimacy of the wealthy paying a larger share of the expenses of infrastructure, the military, etc.  They have greater resources, and they benefit society by its greater contribution.  However, I object to a direct (and obligatory) transfer of wealth from one group to the other for the purposes of "redistributive justice."

I might want you to come with me to an expensive dinner, and if you can't afford it, I'll happily pay a larger portion of the bill.  I would be offended, however, if you said that you would rather just take the money!

jhildner said:

Governments create and enforce property rights, criminal laws, and personal liberties, among other things.  Freedom as we understand it requires government.  It's created by government and nurtured by government.

I agree that government's role is to enforce such things as property rights, personal liberties, etc.  It is supposed to ensure that the "negative rights" are promoted, such as the right not to have your private property seized unjustly, the right not to be discriminated against, etc.  

I do not agree that government creates these rights.  In fact, I think that they are inalienable rights that all men and women possess by virtue of being men and women.

I understand your point that having these rights may just be theoretical without a government in place to enforce those rights (a point you make wittily in your comment about eminent domain).  But it just creeps me out when someone suggests that these rights have to be created and granted(?) by government.

dcheng3

Read the above referenced review of Sunstein's book, which resembles jhildner's non-natural, purely positive law position on the source of human rights.  The reviewer easily and humorously shreds Sunstein's argument.  There are basic natural rights for mankind or the idea of a non-arbitrary justice ultimately doesn't make sense.  The justification of democracy itself degenerates into a happenstance that is made of clay.  I always find it curious that relativists find a way to be morally concerned about people while at the same time adopting a philosophy that is unable to explain why they should be concerned at all - other than perhaps their own survival or a as hobby that interests them.  Something to do and live for.  But that implies there is a fundamental nature, as in a law of nature.  The most radical relativist cannot avoiding making a statement about the nature of mankind and mankind's place in the world.

jacobt1, I am making a broader point about the importance of the role of government in each of these areas which do not lend themselves well to private enterprise. And certainly I am pointing out that the Bush and McCain plutocratic welfare tax cuts are nothing but naked advocacy of massive deficit spending which, in addition to its costs to future generations, has had significant contemporaneous cost, by the build-up of international imbalances, the recycling of massive and unprecedented dollar liquidity back into the US bond market, and the concomitant increase in system leverage and relaxation of lending standards (so much so that many advocated increased taxes for the simple reason that it eased the dangerous and unprecedented circumstance of negative US savings rates against boom time conditions and low investment). Bush/McCain tax policy, in addition to being fiscally responsible has contributed to (and in the sense that both were borne of negligent complacency is symptom of) the cataclysmic circumstances we find ourselves in.

The same thing can be said for energy- a massive and intransigent component of our trade deficit is in petroleum, outflows that are used to fund the most nefarious national security threats and hostile governments in the world. Meanwhile, the science behind global warming is unimpeachable, and yet the Bush administration refused to contemplate a carbon tax or cap and trade such that we could put in place strong market incentives for alternative energy production, (renewables and nuclear), and more to the point conservation (another situation where the economic and national security externalities alone probably merited it). Instead they spent eight years with their head in the sand. Again, the point is that the costs I've outlined are externalities- they cannot be resolved by private enterprise outside the context of effective government policy. Republicans seem very lost on this point.

klfoster, did you make that up just now? High productivity growth is an incentive for investment, not a disincentive. And productivity growth this decade has not been spectacular, although it's mediocre performance certainly doesn't account for the dismal real investment undertaken under the Bush administration (a point noted by economists that have had trouble reconciling the behavior). Cost of capital is indeed a factor influencing investment levels, but the effect of taxation under current circumstances on said is ambiguous. Your understanding of these issues is wanting, your accounting of the financial crisis worse, and as further proof, you neglect to even attempt to account for the record of the policies you advocate. Par for the course, but not worthy of any more of my time.

I Majorajam, you wrote "The economy under Bush experienced unprecedentedly low corporate investment as a fraction of GDP."  I simply pointed out the mathematical fact that as productivity increases each dollar of investment will produce an ever greater amount of gross revenue. Hence the percentage of investment as a fraction of each GDP$ should fall.  You are correct that such increasing efficiency should warrant greater (absolute) investment, all other things impacting profits aside.  But businesses do not invest simply to increase gross revenues; rather they are looking to produce incremental free cash flow that represents an adequate return on the capital invested.

I don't see that you understand today's crisis.  Dismissive arrogance is not an understanding.  I pointed out that the Fed policy increased liquidity in the market - excessive liquidity.  This is a necessary precondition for producing large asset bubbles be they in the form of general inflation or a more focused asset class such as what we witnessed in 1998-2000 in tech stocks and in 2002 - 2007 in housing.  We didn't have asset bubbles during the Depression because monetary growth was negative.  The asset bubbles did not just occur in housing; they also were reflected in financial assets.  Some of these financial assets were based on home mortgages but not all. The impact of excess liquidity in the financial market is that investors take ever greater risks for lower returns.  There was so much liquidity that Wall Street began creating investment structures just to meet investor demand for securities (and to generate some rather large and unwarranted fees for themselves). The inflated values of the assets underlying these new securities were likewise inflated.  Too much money chasing to few goods. There certainly was a lack of regulation, especially since the taxpayer was going to be on the hook for much of the damage.  So what we have is a perfect storm and one that analysts still do not fully understand.

As for the relationship between the reduced Bush tax rates and the deficit, you neglect to say a word about out of control spending during the Bush administration. Wars and domestic spending explain a greater part of the deficit than do the tax cuts. McCain deserves some credit for opposing the Bush tax cuts without their being accompanied by reductions in expenses.

Unimpeachable global warming (of the man-made type)?  Your reading sources are much too limited.

dcheng3:

"What is controversial is the way that Obama has decided to cast his tax plan--as a redistributive scheme involving the transfer of wealth from one group directly to another."

Well, he's not really casting it that way.  His opponents are.

"This, to me, is not the same thing as the rich paying a larger share of the taxes than the middle class.  I can see the legitimacy of the wealthy paying a larger share of the expenses of infrastructure, the military, etc.  They have greater resources, and they benefit society by its greater contribution.  However, I object to a direct (and obligatory) transfer of wealth from one group to the other for the purposes of 'redistributive justice.'"

Yes it is the same.  I'm having trouble understanding the distinction you're trying to draw.  You *seem* to be saying that you're fine with the policy, or at least don't regard it as radical or especially controversial, but you don't like thinking of it as a "direct transfer" of wealth.  Well, it's not a "direct transfer."  It is as you describe the in the second quote.  In any event, what difference does it make whether you cast it in those terms?  Obama proposes to make the income tax a little more progressive than it is.  You can call that redistribution of wealth, and you'd be right.  You can call it a wealth transfer, and, you'd be right, but only in the uncontroversial sense that progressive taxes have that effect.  So, I'm still not getting what exactly you're objecting to other than some buzzwords.

dcheng3:   "I understand your point that having these rights may just be theoretical without a government in place to enforce those rights (a point you make wittily in your comment about eminent domain).  But it just creeps me out when someone suggests that these rights have to be created and granted(?) by government."

Well, the *fact* is that governments establish and enforce legal rights through an ultimate threat of legitimate violence.  This is derided as "positivist" by some, although it merely states a fact that I don't think anybody could possibly deny.  If you prefer to think of governments as discovering and enforcing preexisting natural rights, rather than establishing or granting them, I won't strenuously object, because it doesn't really make a difference.  We all agree that a just government is democratic and doesn't oppress its citizens, where violating certain particular human rights constitutes oppression.

However, I detect sometimes in the libertarian perspective, with its constant anti-government refrain or cries of "less" government, an insufficient recognition of the importance and presence of government.  Property, for example, is a legal term.  The only sense in which anyone owns anything is that people have the right to harnass the collective power of the government to exclude their neighbor (or, indeed, the government itself) from appropriating it or interfering with their dominion over it.  Similarly, contracts, as we understand them, don't exist without the ability to go to court to enforce their terms.  The right to more-or-less think and say as one pleases without being imprisoned or shot by a government officer is likewise backed by an independent judiciary, the orders of which are enforced, if necessary, by men and women with guns.

So, the distinction between "positive" and "negative" rights is somewhat illusory.  Any right can be characterized as either positive -- requiring the government to do something -- or negative -- requiring the government to refrain from doing something.  Without the positive element -- the requirement that the government enforce the right in question -- I think the right is less than "theoretical."  I think it's non-existent as a matter of descriptive reality (as opposed to philosophical hope).

None of this need creep you out.  Government, as I think Barney Frank said, is merely another name for what we do together.  We recognize certain rights and enforce them.  Where these rights come from is beside the point, I think.  klfoster has never spoken with God, I guarantee you.

The question Susntein has proposed in his book "The Second Bill of Rights," and the question that liberal lawyers were proposing some time ago regarding the Constitution, is whether we should recognize additional rights we don't all agree on -- rights we typically characterize as "positive" (though, as I said, that distinction has problems).  A couple of such rights we're talking about in this election are the right to decent health care and the right to a decent education (already guaranteed by many state constitutions).  FDR once proposed a few more, basically amounting to a right to a decent home and the right to earn a decent living.  These so-called positive rights have been established in other constitutions.  They are even widely recognized here, though not as a matter of constutional law.  What Obama was saying in this interview is that he does not favor the effort to read into the Constitution such "positive" rights, which is perfectly consistent with any conservative view.

In any event, this election does not pose questions of whether or not to cross a line of principle.  Both McCain and Obama would redistribute wealth -- McCain less so.  This is not "socialism" vs. "capitalism."  In the grand scheme, we will be about as socialist and as capitalist as we have ever been under either candidate.  The real questions are not ones of such intellectual abstraction but rather of more mundane reality.

Now, there are hardliners such as klfoster whose agenda would never be enacted but will vote for McCain anyway because at least he's going in the right direction.  For my part, I find it "curious," to use klfoster's word, that one who lectures others on morality would basically posit overall wealth maximization the only moral value government may act upon.

jhildner:  I am not a Libertarian, even with a small l.  My issue with increased taxation on the wealthy as proposed by Obama and other Liberals is the economic prudence of doing so.  I don't know the magic point of regression where capital will flee in noticeable amounts thereby decreasing job growth and general wealth but I can tell you that the state of California faces some of this capital flight to states such as Nevada, where taxes and other costs are lower.  If it weren't for our beautiful scenery and weather, matters outside the reach of demagogues, we would be in a world of hurt, exceeding our current $10 billion deficit. (We are now hoping the other 49 states will bail us out of our fiscal irresponsibility.)

Limited government is core to maintaining liberty and that is the basis for what you and Sunstein and Obama call negative rights.  These rights are secured by preventing the Government from taking them away from us. They are rights that we naturally possess as individuals unless taken away by force. The idea of limited government clashes with demagoguery.

The introduction of a concept of positive rights into the Constitution is simply to say that the Government has an obligation and the power to deliver certain goods or services to the citizenry.  Our Constitution does have such "rights" as expressed in those clauses that empower and obligate the Federal Government to do certain things.  Military defense against foreign invasion would be one of those "positive" rights. Our limited government concept keeps such empowerment to a minimum in order to maximize our freedom.

One can posit that it would be good (or as a political tactic, "you have a right to..."), for example, to increase the breadth of health care, to own a home, to have an education equal to the wealthiest people, to have a computer, to have more than one car or more than one TV.  This is all dependent on our ability to afford and deliver it while, I would hope, keeping with our core value of limited government.  At the state level such promises have become problematic because most states have in their constitution a prohibition against deficit spending. Not so at the Federal level where politicians can ask for your vote today in exchange for benefit while putting the payment of such benefit off on a future generation that not only can't yet vote but probably isn't yet born.  That is, when will the music have to stop?  

Progressive income taxation is permitted by the Constitution, though it has opened up the potential for an abuse that concerned our Founding Fathers: the majority taking property from the minority.  Demagoguery disguised as righteousness is repulsive. To wit:  "I am such a good and moral person.  If you vote for me and put me in power I am going to take money away from those people over there and give it to you." This is not exactly how I would describe personal virtue, which is generally considered to involve self sacrifice.  

The issue that I have with Sunstein and Obama, apart from their honesty as I noted above, is their willingness to modify the Constitution through the Supreme Court rather than through the steps required by the Constitution in order to enact a scheme of “positive rights”. This political change started at the beginning of the twentieth century when Progressivism began to take hold, as noted by someone above.  Obama says that he can construct a theoretical legal argument to support such a role by the courts, including redistribution of wealth.  He sees it as problematic but for political reasons.  In other words, if he saw it as achievable, he would go forth essentially rewriting the principles of our limited government.  His actual proposals are more modest but that is only a beginning.  And that is why I think he is dangerous.  I can also see why his relationships with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers and other leftists were not simply incidental or casual.  I do not know what he would really do, given the power.  The all too pro-Obama press is too smitten with his oratorical abilities and coolness to see their way to probing his beliefs in any serious way.  Puppy love.