Can McCain and Bush deny that they have led the charge on redistribution of wealth over the past eight years? They have redistributed billions of dollars upward to the super rich in the form of tax cuts, increasing the burden on everyone else.
First, a legal definition of "redistributative change," which doesn't mean what McCain says it does.
[Obama legal advisor Cass] Sunstein argued that Obama is discussing redistribution in a relatively narrow legal context: The discussion in the 1970s of whether the Supreme Court would create the right to a social safety net -- to things like education and welfare.
"What the critics are missing is that the term 'redistribution' didn’t mean in the Constitutional context equalized wealth or anything like that. It meant some positive rights, most prominently the right to education, and also the right to a lawyer," Sunstein said. "What he’s saying – this is the irony of it – he’s basically taking the side of the conservatives then and now against the liberals."
The context of Obama's "redistributive change" remarks was a 2001 legal panel on the Chicago local public radio station. Obama and two fellow law professors discussed what issues were the provenance of the courts, and which should be determined by legislation. Obama's view on the question is rather conservative.
Obama:
"One other area where the civil rights area has changed... is at the state level you now have state supreme courts and state laws that in some ways have adopted the ethos of the Warren Court. A classic example would be something like public education, where after Brown v. Board, a major issue ends up being redistribution -- how do we get more money into the schools, and how do we actually create equal schools and equal educational opportunity? Well, the court in a case called San Antonio v. Rodriguez in the early '70s basically slaps those kinds of claims down, and says, 'You know what, we as a court have no power to examine issues of redistribution and wealth inequalities. With respect to schools, that's not a race issue, thats a wealth issue and something and we can't get into."
Today John McCain is trying to convince people that Obama is a "socialist" because of a legal term he used in the above scholarly discussion in 2001. He's sneering that Obama is a Redistributionist. He's assuring the people at his rally that they will all be rich one day too, so it doesn't make sense to roll back the Bush tax cuts, and in fact we should give the rich a bigger tax cut. Because that will be good for you! Some day, in the future, when you are rich!
John McCain is an upward redistributionist, just like his friend George Bush. McCain married money. His wife is worth many millions of dollars, possibly $100M. He lives in nine homes. He flies on his own private jet. He spends hundreds of thousands every year just to pay his household staff. Do you think John McCain wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts?
The Bush tax cuts redistribute the wealth upwards, directly out of our pockets and into the pockets of John McCain and his fellow zillionaires. John McCain is in no way opposed to the redistribution of wealth. Just so long as it benefits the wealthy.
I would be delighted if people would weigh in with examples and statistics regarding the GOP's upward redistribution of wealth over the past eight years.