Tax Lawyer's Blog

Ever since Barack Obama was caught on camera telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread the wealth around, John McCain and Sarah Palin have stridently accused him of favoring socialism.

Not surprisingly, this has caused several tax bloggers to come to Mr. Obama’s defense.  Here are excerpts from some of the more interesting posts:

Share the Wealth- Howard Gleckman, Tax Vox Blog:

McCain may have missed this, but for decades government has used the tax code for much more than raising money. These days, redistributing tax revenues are the principal way government encourages people to do what it wants and discourages them from doing what it doesn’t. 

“Sharing the wealth,” as McCain puts it, is what government does. McCain’s support of President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts may have been slow coming, but it has been whole-hearted throughout this campaign. And those bills were redistributionist heaven.

Progressive Taxation — Socialism? Or Just Standard U.S.A. Tax Policy? – Linda Beale, A Taxing Matter:

As far as progressive taxation representing socialism, nothing could be further from the truth.  Note first that McCain himself acknowledged that tax cuts should be provided to the lower income taxpayers, not the wealthiest (in his brief preriod as a Maverick on tax matters, prior to his current incarnation as Bush reincarnate).  But aside from that, America’s congressional representatives and presidents and leaders have almost uniformly supported progressive taxation throughout our history, and in fact enacted essentially progressive taxation policies into law since the beginning of the income tax.  Similarly, American taxpayers have consistently supported progressivity in the tax system when questioned in surveys. 

On Obama, Socialism and Tax Policy - Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times:

The U.S. already has a progressive federal income tax structure. Those with higher incomes already pay more. The nation has Medicare–nationalized, subsidized health insurance for seniors as well as some others. Congress just approved a bail-out that partly nationalized banks–a deal Republicans and Democrats supported.

Of course, these bloggers don’t really exculpate Obama of the socialism charge, they merely accuse McCain of being a socialist too.

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