Spreading The Wealth: Obama, Joe And The Democratic Socialists

By now, almost everybody knows "Joe the plumber." Mentioned about 15 times in Wednesday's presidential debate, Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Toledo, questioned Sen. Barack Obama at an Ohio campaign stop earlier in the week. Joe wanted to know if Obama's tax plan would raise his taxes. Mr. Obama replied, "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too." Mr Obama added, "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Surely, given this now widely publicized remark about spreading the wealth, it must be safe to finally talk openly about Mr. Obama and the S-word-socialism.

For months, conservative bloggers have been writing about Mr. Obama's relationship with New Party. This is no small thing; in fact, it is quite significant, and demands our attention.

The New Party is a political movement aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The New Party actually endorsed Mr. Obama's successful 1996 Illinois state Senate campaign. Mr. Obama, in turn, encouraged New Party involvement in his voter education and registration efforts. According to a 1995 issue of the Chicago DSA newsletter, the New Party required endorsed candidates to sign a contract to have a "visible and active relationship" with the party. While the New Party's influence has waned, the DSA remains an active movement.

What does the DSA believe? Here is what the group's by-laws advocate: " ... a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships."

Surely, we can all agree with the values of racial and gender equality and non-oppressive relationships. Free-market adherents believe in those principles as well. However, consider the group's support of income distribution. There, one can see the intellectual foundation for Mr. Obama's answer to Mr. Wurzelbacher. Redistributing wealth, which is a foundational principle of socialism, is part and parcel of the Obama tax plan, even though Mr. Obama has avoided using the S-word.

And why not? Despite periodic, and hopefully temporary, interventions in free markets (such as is occurring in the financial sector), most Americans do not want to live in a socialist economy. We value the personal freedoms inherent in a free-market economy.

When the productive plumber protests that his tax burden will increase, Mr. Obama intuits the problem inherent in "equitable distribution." He says to his questioner, "It's not that I want to punish your success. ..."

Unfortunately, punished success is precisely the kind of mischief that successful Americans fear. Mr. Obama's desire to "spread the wealth around" may not come with malevolent intent, but, to be sure, such policies, which, again, are advocated by the Democratic Socialists, may result in inhibitions of initiative and innovation.

Rudolph Penner recently said on a C-Span call-in show that capitalism isn't perfect, but it is better than the alternatives. Indeed, many have suggested that the current mortgage mess derives from well-intended attempts to spread the wealth around. In unraveling the causes of the housing bust, one finds multiple targets of blame. However, it seems clear that government policies that encouraged home ownership beyond a borrower's means were part of the chaos. In light of the federal government's inability to manage markets, it is a fair question to ask: Do we need more central planning or less?

Thanks to "Joe the Plumber," such crucial questions are now part of the public debate. Should the nation move to the left and embrace the principles of democratic socialism or should it seek to revive the best in free markets and free trade? There is a clear choice before us.

One reason that the Great Depression could be overcome (besides all the political manipulations) is because MOST people in the cities and towns RENTED their homes and could "pick up and move" if they couldn't pay the rent. With the advent of "everyone owning a home (whether they can afford it or not)" it is nearly impossible to pick up and move. The house must be sold or go into foreclosure. All this takes time. If there are available jobs elsewhere, the home OWNER is screwed. The RENTER was in better shape overall during the Great Depression. Even if that's not saying much, in my opinion, it's still an important factor in the recovery of the Great Depression.

One "other" important factor was that most people during that time had initiative. They learned to "make do." They bought some chickens so they could have eggs and meat on Sundays. They grew gardens. The figured a way to "make it." They sewed their own clothing. My grandmother took apart worn clothing and reconfigured it and sewed it back together making a woman's suit out of a man's suit. I wore "chicken feed sack" dresses and pinafores as a child long after the Depression, because such frugality was ingrained in my grandmother.

Some people got hired by the Federal Government for things like CCC and WPA (my own great grandfather and grandfather worked with WPA), but there were many people who made it through without Government intervention or assistance (another great grandfather did as did most of his extended family).

What FDR did to us was collectively change the mindset from "initiative" to "entitlement" and opened the door to socialism/communism and share-the-wealth-ism. If there had been no SSA, I would have (and should have) saved for my own retirement. Like many (embarrassingly) I did count on SSA with my State Retirement incomes to fund "the rest of my long and contented life." Fortunately, I am encouraged by my adult children who have 401Ks.

The photo in my head is the one of the New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward residents standing around waiting for someone else to make the decision to move them to higher ground. These people have FEET. Why did they not have initiative? Why did people leave their pets to drown when they left their homes prior to the flooding and when they were rescued from it? Why didn't they grab their pets and WALK to higher ground as soon as they knew the levees weren't going to hold? Why did they stand in line for a bus to the Civic Center, kiss their pet goodbye, drop it to the ground, and board the bus without their pet? There WAS enough time to grab what you needed and your pet and children and walk to higher ground and THEN ask for assistance. But they WAITED. The rains came, the levees failed, the town flooded and they still waited. They waited because they lacked initiative. They were entitled. They waited.

Why don't teachers teach initiative to students?

Because they're too busy teaching "share the wealth."

And if all initiative is gone, what's left? Who is left? We become a Nation of robotic minded serfs living in wretched poverty whilst the leaders live like . . . Caliphs.

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