A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on October 31st, 2008 in This blog

I don’t generally have a problem with conservatives. It’s when they start talking about public policy that I have a problem. Like this example:

Obama laughs off the charge of socialist behavior — and to be fair, socialism isn’t the precise term to affix to his ideas. It’s more like Robin Hood economics. On a recent campaign stop, Obama joked that, by the end of the week, McCain would be accusing him “of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

A funny line. But, of course, Obama’s lofty intellect must comprehend the fundamental difference between sharing your G.I. Joe with a friend and having a bully snatch your G.I. Joe for the collective, prepubescent good. It’s the difference between coercion and free association and trade. In practical terms, it’s the difference between government cheese and a meal at Ruth’s Chris.

Wha-a-a-a-a-a-at?

So in this comparison, teaching a child to share his or her toy is teaching them to accept free cheese from the government? That’s a pretty big stretch.

And it isn’t about taking a toy from a child – bully or not. The comparison would be taking a couple of toys from a child who has millions and giving them to children who have none. If there was only a single dollar in the economy, the comparison might hold up. Obama’s line isn’t about economics, it’s about the dirty under-handed nature of John McCain’s campaign who will tie any action to the worst possible scenario – a gimmick apparently embraced by the conservative author.

By the way, there is no such a thing as “free trade”. Try and force the local megamart to change just about anything based on your buying power. Force your employer to change any policy based on your productivity. Then come back and tell me how effective your bargaining power is.

Now, I’m not suggesting Obama intends to transform this nation into 1950s-era Soviet tyranny or that he will possess the power to do so. I’m suggesting Obama is praising and mainstreaming an economic philosophy that has failed to produce a scintilla of fairness or prosperity anywhere on Earth. Ever.

Um – Barack Obama is talking about rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the highest income earners and allowing the folks at the bottom of the income scale to cash in on the tax code by making tax credits refundable. We had prosperity and a bit of fairness before Bush, right? Well, I think you hardly need look any further to find an example of why this author is simply being dishonest.

As far as redistributionist policies bringing prosperity – well, the tax code was even more progressive – translated, redistributionist – from the time of the Depression through the 1980s. Some of the fastest growth of widespread prosperity happened in those years – when the wealthy were taxed heavily to provide schools, bridges, highways, and even welfare programs for the poor.

“Fairness” is much more ambiguous a term. Are we to measure fairness only by income paid back in tax? Or shall we look at total wealth accumulated? Perhaps we might remember the widow’s mite. If you aren’t familiar – rich people giving lots of money doesn’t equate to poor people giving all they have because rich people still have tons of money left over. Don’t like that? Talk to Jesus. It’s his example.

You know, once upon a time, the stated purpose of taxation was to fund public needs like schools and roads, assist those who could not help themselves, defend our security and freedom, and, yes, occasionally offer a bailout to sleazy fat cats.

Obama is the first major presidential candidate in memory to assert that taxation’s principal purpose should be redistribution.

Well, yeah – like I said. What part of “assist those who could not help themselves” does not contain a redistributive aspect? The question appears to be more about who deserves help through redistribution of income rather than whether redistribution should take place.

But perhaps the problem is one of memory. Can’t remember Ronald Reagan?

Gergen also noted that the Reagan administration was responsible for enacting the Earned Income Tax Credit, an extremely successful redistribution program which returns money to the working poor.

Yes, the EITC – the same kind of refundable tax credit that Republicans are now vilifying.

The proposition that government should take one group’s lawfully earned profits and hand them to another group — not a collection of destitute or impaired Americans, mind you, but a still-vibrant middle class — is the foundational premise of Obama’s fiscal poli

This is simply an outright lie. If he said “working class”, he would have been closer to the truth. The refundable tax credits only redistribute income if a person has not paid enough tax to cover them – otherwise it is simply reclaiming the tax one has already paid. I know it’s common to refer to the working class as the middle class, but they are not the same. Even if Joe Biden said it.

And who knew we needed such a drastic renovation of an economic philosophy we’ve adhered to these past 25 years (even counting Bill Clinton’s comparatively fiscal conservative record)? Despite a recent downturn, and with all the serious tribulations we face, Americans have just lived through perhaps the most prosperous and peaceful era human beings have ever enjoyed.

Yeah – it’s so drastic it is basically the same as what we had in 1999 – with a few more targeted tax breaks for working people. So drastic!

Then again, it is doubtful that Obama is on his way to the presidency because of any revolutionary idea. It’s about performance. And by performance, I mean the performance of President Bush.

Bush’s failure, however, should not be counted as a failure of markets or capitalism. Even if it were, history shows us that the failures of capitalism are a lot more fun than the absence of capitalism.

Wha-a-a-a-a-at?

How can anyone look at our credit and banking institutions and not realize that a massive market failure occurred? Did not Alan Greenspan say that there was a basic flaw in the idea that markets will govern themselves? Is this not basically the same lesson we supposedly learned in 1929?

Capitalism is far from failed. But it sure does work a hell of a lot better for people at the top – and not nearly well enough for people at the bottom. It is not an abandonment of capitalism to spread a safety net so that people are not crashed and crushed when the greedy and irresponsible take us all to hell in a handbasket.

Conservatives have been accusing liberals of being socialists since, I don’t know, since liberals have been accusing conservatives of being fascists.

But when a candidate explicitly endorses a collectivist policy . . . well, words still have meaning, don’t they?

Well, “everyone does it” so that makes it right, right? Yes, words still have meaning. Especially words like “Liar!”

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