WASHINGTON — Rebecca M. Blank was a top candidate in 2011 to lead President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, but then the White House turned up something politically dangerous.
“A commitment to economic justice necessarily implies a commitment to the redistribution of economic resources, so that the poor and the dispossessed are more fully included in the economic system,” Ms. Blank, a noted poverty researcher, wrote in 1992. With advisers wary of airing those views in a nomination fight, Mr. Obama passed over Ms. Blank, then a top Commerce Department official and now the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. Instead he chose Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist.
“Redistribution is a loaded word that conjures up all sorts of unfairness in people’s minds,” said William M. Daley, who was Mr. Obama’s chief of staff at the time. Republicans wield it “as a hammer” against Democrats, he said, adding, “It’s a word that, in the political world, you just don’t use.”
These days the word is particularly toxic at the White House, where it has been hidden away to make the Affordable Care Act more palatable to the public and less a target for Republicans, who have long accused Democrats of seeking “socialized medicine.” But the redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law and lies at the heart of the insurance market disruptions driving political attacks this fall.
More at the NY Times
Whenever I hear Obama talk with, say, Joe the plumber, about redistribution, I think of the insanely rich oil sheiks in the ME.
They live in incredible luxury, like Obama.
BUT, their people are abjectly poor.
Every now and then these rich hypocrites stop partying in Europe and invite a long line of poor people to the gate in the high walls of one of their castles.
Each poor person who has an adequate sob story gets a gift of cash.
The relatives of the sheik’s enemies cannot qualify no matter how sad their story.
Obama seems to follow this pattern with American taxpayer money.
His buddies, his supporters get food stamps, cell phones, housing, even non-background-checked jobs…..if they want to work in a target-rich environment for identity theft.
Can anyone point to a CONSERVATIVE group supplying ”navigators” for ObamaCare???
If all things were equal, about 1/2 of all navigator supplying organizations would be right of center.
Yes, the inherent hypocrisy of the left is never more glaring than the fact that describing their wealth redistribution policies is to be avoided…but the wealth redistribution is supposed to continue on unabated.
It is a sad state of intellectual affairs in the US when so many people give into the spirit of envy, coveting their neighbor’s goods, shutting down the critical thinking skills necessary to see that this thinly camouflaged Marxist ideology is utilized to fleece the masses for the economic and political gain of the party elite.
It was stunning for me to hear acquaintances admit they knew Obama’s policies were harming the economy, but still planned on voting for him in 2012 anyway. When I expressed my sense of incredulity at such a position, one person explained that he had been out of work for three years, and was afraid that if he voted for Romney his unemployment benefits would be cut off. Think about that for a second…he admitted Obama’s economic policies were the reason he was out of work, but he was afraid of losing the paltry government welfare check so he voted to continue supporting the policies that had put him into his poor economic situation.
This is exactly why the government welfare/unemployment crack dealers are so evil. They want Americans to be dependent on government welfare cheese. This is exactly what FDR wanted when he pushed Social Security. This is what LBJ wanted when he pushed welfare, Medicare and Medicaid. This is exactly what the leftists want with ramming obamacare down our throats.
The problem with their parasitical design, is that unchecked, parasites kill the host. Look at the insanity of Seattle, having elected a self-declared socialist to the City Council. She was recently quoted as telling the machinist union at Boeing to simply takeover the equipment and facilities if Boeing decides (as they should have done years ago) to move to a right-to-work state. How much more economically illiterate can someone be?
Any vote for any democrat (camouflaged socialist) anywhere is a vote for national suicide.
Healthier America: Innovation, Competition and Prevention
Nov 7, 2009
Press Release – NANCY PELOSI Statement…
…”President Obama has said that health care reform is entitlement reform. And this legislation proves that point. It is fiscally sound, it is paid for.…
The “it is paid for” is a hoot…What Government Program or Programs have the demoRats/liberals/progressives ever implemented that has EVER been “PAID FOR”??? They are ALL Schemes to Perpetuate STEALING from the TAX PAYER…to REDISTRIBUTE as the Government “sees fit” of course… and encourages Fraud among all… (they do absolutely nothing to stop the Fraud even to the point of hiring felons and Funding Felonious, corrupt Groups posing as ‘activists’ )
Here we go with the LIES yet again….Granted there are sadly MILLIONS of STUPID People in America…on the UP SIDE there are MILLIONS who ARE NOT and do not believe what “this” ever corrupt Government “continually” feeds them as “Truth”…
Wealth distribution Warren Buffett has phoned all billionaires and asked them to join him in donating half their wealth to charities of their choice. Many have agreed to do so . Many have not.
Warren says he’s going to author a book ” How to survive on 500 Million Dollars” and give the book to those who declined.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/25/3-problems-with-todays-obamacare-excuse/
Mickey Kaus shreds this excuse for why ObamaCare is not working.
Redistribution is a feature not a bug.
His points include:
Suck it up and stop bitching, Dems!
Don’t give in to Republicans who always attack redistribution. This redistribution is just “a convenient tool for Republican opponents who would fight the law anyway.”
You can redistribute from the richer to the poorer–call that “redistribution of wealth”–or you can redistribute from younger* and healthier (even if poor) to older and sicker (even if rich). Obamacare does both.
Democrats chose to make a “small number” of conspicuous losers because they didn’t want to raise more taxes and spend more subsidies in a way that would show up on budget tables.
The Dems may have had a political reason for making that choice– but it was a choice, not an inevitability.
And increasingly it looks like a questionable choice.
If you wanted to hold down the budget number, why not make it possible to subsidize more “winners” by keeping the package of “essential benefits” from bloating to include drug and mental health services?
*Young people are now required to purchase insurance under Obamacare or pay a fine, and “many low-income younger Americans won’t get any subsidy at all.”
THE LIE: In April, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “told a congressional subcommittee that any individual making under that $45,960 threshold—or four times the poverty level of $11,490 for an individual—would qualify for ‘an upfront tax subsidy.'”
THE TRUTH:
In Chicago, a 27-year old will receive no subsidy to help offset premiums of more than $165 a month if he makes more than $27,400 a year.
In Portland, Oregon, subsidies for individuals making just $28,725 a year phase out for those younger than 35 years old.
In Nashville, a 25-year old making $25,500 will not qualify for a subsidy.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a 4o-year old making $28,725 a year will not get a subsidy.
@Richard Wheeler:
If a wealthy person personally chooses to give wealth away, that is commendable charity.
When leftists mandate the stealing camouflaged as government compassion for the political buying of the votes of the uneducated and the lazy, it is not virtuous.
the REPUBLICANS should make sure there is a time spent on educating the welfare recipients, ON ELECTION TIME,
on who is paying them, and tell them what they can better make their lives EASYER, by freeing them from the EMPLOYED LOYALS BY OBAMA TO constantly thightening their hold on them with the propaganda constantly pounding them,
which the REPUBLICANS WOULD NEVER DEBASS THEMSELVES TO USE SUCH destructive and
nefarious mesures to hold them apart from the other who work and want to be that free from the claws
WHICH THIS REGIME HAS INDICTED THEM TO BE AND REMAINED FOR LIFE, by taking from the hard worker people to them without any need to give it back to the worker, that is,
REDISTRIBUTION
NO matter how they want hide that word,
Obama never give of his own pocket money to any americans, or to any foreign country which he give by billions in there,
of course it’s so much more easy to spend the people’s money,
without having to give it back ever while he is very well paid by the people he steel from,
BECAUSE IT SUIT THE REGIME AND HELP THEM TO FIND WAYS TO TAKE MORE MONEY FROM THE OTHER WORKER,
AND BY PRETENDING THAT OBAMA IS THE FIRST ONE TO HELP THE WELFARE RECIPIENTS EVER IS THE BIG LIE,
IT IS REALLY FOR HIS OWN PROFIT AND INSURENCE TO BE RE-ELECTED AS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SAVE THEM,
WHAT A GIGANTIC LIE PLAYED ON THE POORS,
THERE IS NO SAVIORS IN THIS COUNTRY AS LONG AS HE IS IN POWER, THE POORS WILL BE BETTER OF WITHOUT HIM,