Ed Brayton writes about Romney’s latest ploy: accusing Obama of planning a major “redistribution” of wealth—the “socialist” boogeyman. As Ed notes, redistribution of wealth isn’t a new thing. It’s going on right now.
Crop subsidies, for example, go almost entirely to huge agribusiness interests, to the tune of billions of dollars per year. The billions in tax subsidies for oil companies are also redistribution of wealth, but it’s redistributing it up rather than down. Romney never seems to mention those things to the fabulously rich people at his $50,000 a plate fundraisers, likely because a lot of them are a good deal richer because of such redistribution.
This is one area where the left may have common interests with rank-and-file conservatives. Conservatives know that a lot of the tangible wealth generated through their honest labor is being shifted to people who didn’t do the work to earn it. But they haven’t followed the money. They think the poor are taking it, but the poor haven’t got it. And neither, for that matter, does the government. Our multi-trillion-dollar debt is because the government is distributing wealth it doesn’t even have yet. And 85% of the wealth is ending up in the pockets of the top 20%, with most of it being concentrated in the hands of a very few families.
We need to end this lobbyist-driven, obfuscated, and manipulative redistribution now. The last thing we need is someone like Romney running the program.
But those agribusiness interests need those subsidies so they can create more jobs… for illegal immigrants. Hmmm, there’s a phrase we aren’t hearing so much this election cycle.
Vested interests have no problem with the redistribution of wealth as long as it is from the bottom and middle up. That is the way things are now and they want them to stay that way. Even the worst welfare cheats cannot compete with this kind of redistribution. Even if they could they would be spending every penny back into the economy instead of renting it to the government in the form of T-bills. Voters don’t like like giving money to people who do not make a fair contribution to society. They just don’t realize how many of them are very rich.
Spot on!
The wage-earners would feel frustrated if the very rich were identified as the villians because they can’t get close enough to the very rich to strike back at them. The very poor, however, are easy to find and easy to tackle – perfect scapegoats.