If Obama has looked farther into a socialist future, it is because he stood on the shoulders of statist GOP giants.

Give it up, Pat. The Earned Income Tax Credit has been around many years now, doing exactly what you accuse Obama of planning.  Railing against Obama while largely letting the Republicans off the hook is like picking a viper at random from a nest and shaking your finger at it. 

The Stupid Party had its chance, and it put support of its president above the welfare of America and the liberties of its people.

“Under his tax plan, the top 5 percent of wage-earners have their income tax rates raised from 35 percent to 40 percent, while the bottom 40 percent of all wage-earners, who pay no income tax, are sent federal checks.”

Where is this in his plan? He promises to cut taxes for 95% who pay taxes. Those who don’t pay taxes, obviously will not get a tax break. About the $250K plus income...they were paying a higher rate.Bush cut the rate and that cut expires in 2010. So Obama is not doing anything different than what Bush planned to do in 2010 anyway.

Obama is not a socialist for sure. He raised plenty of money on Wall Street and those wall street hustlers are savvy enough to know he is for them.
Wall Street hustlers are pretty sharp; they turned Bush, Paulson, and McCain into socialist though.

This constant whining about taxes gets old.
Makes the whiners appear materialistic, greedy and cheap.
For myself, I’d pay even higher taxes
were I confident they’d be used carefully for good.
There are far more important things than money.

Wealth redistribution is not a bad idea.  During the “economic boom” of the Clinton years the managerial-administrative elite saw their real income rise, whereas white collar and blue collar incomes stagnated or decreased.  Certainly this elite is not the most productive segment of society, they do not qualify as the “excellence” which is killed by forced egalitarianism.

Wealth inequality, to the extent it exists in the U.S. (which is about the level of some third world countries) is an issue to consider.  It is true that enforced egalitarianism kills excellence, but this is also true at the other extreme.  Extreme wealth inequality does not help excellence either, especially when one takes into account that in the U.S. upward mobility has diminished in the last decades (I read this in an article by Paul Craig Roberts).

Of course one should not overdo wealth redistribution.  Moreover I think there is much redistribution from poor-to-rich or middle class-to-rich when one considers that for example the military industrial complex is tax supported, or that science is tax supported, but once something is discovered corporations reap most of the material benefits (this is also true when for example a certain pharmaceutical product turns out to be harmful a decade after it hits the market).  This is indirect taxing of the poor or middle class to benefit the rich.

It’s election time! That means ole Pat goes back on the elephant reservation....like 88...and 92...and 96...and 04....

No, Pat, no. No, Pat, no.

“This is indirect taxing of the poor or middle class to benefit the rich.”

It is no such thing. The poor don’t pay income taxes. Who do you think pays for the education, medical care, food and general upbringing of the poor?

we pay alot more than income taxes.  we pay inflation taxes, we pay fees on everything, we pay all sorts of stuff.  income tax is liek a third of the money the governmetn collects.

also, all the wealthiest “elites” are also socialists, I know I live in massachusetts and there is an obama biden sign every 5 feet.  why are the republicans trying to stop people who want to pay higher taxes from paying them?

Funny, all the “class warfare” and “redistribution” stuff. Anybody who is an employee above the manufacturing floor level can see the class warfare.

Useless layers of management - all somebodies buddy, brought in to reap the rewards of something sucessful mostly by being at the right place at the right time.

What happens when the time turns alittle and the earnings cannot be grown so the valuable management can still get the big bonuses? Why just move the jobs offshore so the hard working and loyal manufacturing employees who have been with the company long before our brilliant new managers can be let go to save a few dollars an hour, that we don’t really need for the survival of the company. That this thinking is Republican (party) to the core is one reason I can never support their ilk again. This is the for of redistribution Republicans can all get behind.

I meant to say - This in the KIND of redistribution Republicans can all get behind.

An underlying but unspoken interracial truism on the streets is that redistribution of wealth prevents what James Baldwin called “The Fire Next Time” – another Watts, another Detroit.  But that kind of interracial payoff is no longer necessary. African Americans have come so far in the past three generations to claim their piece of the American pie, that the segregated America of the 1950s is no longer recognizable.  A policy of redistribution – the wrong prescription at the wrong time – would be counterproductive to the growing Black mood of “We can make it in this country without anyone’s condescension.”

My fear is that, just as 9-11 supplied the fear that gave Dubya a blank check in foreign policy – leading to disaster, so can the current stock market collapse supply the fear to give Obama a blank check to remake the economy – along Socialist lines.

@R. Nelson claims “the Stupid Party had its chance.” Sorry, the real “Stupid Party” took over eight years ago, with Dubya fronting for traitorous scumbags, using Slick Willie’s charming phrase.

Must-see cartoon:  Delonas, Friday October 31, 2008, http://www.nypost.com/delonas.htm.  Says little Obama, holding out his trick or treat bag, “Just give me all the candy and I’ll spread the wealth.” Of course, the New York Post--along with the Washington Times and the Dallas Morning News--has been kicked off the Obama campaign plane for endorsing McCain.

This does not bode well for dissent.

I usually like Pat’s writing, but this piece is just silly and embarrassing.

hossp:

This is a refundable tax credit, which means that people who don’t pay taxes get a check back from the government.

Pat is right, Obama is a socialist and that is something that should concern us all. What he didn’t mention, unfortunately, is that McCain is a National Socialist (as pointed out by the brilliant Thomas DiLorenzo) and also wants to redistribute wealth. The difference is Obama wants to send the wealth down the chain, while McCain wants to send it up the chain to his buddies in the corporate world (social corporatism) and to his buddies over in George.

sometime today one of the takimag guys will come on and go “pat is absolutely right, obama is a socialist. pat is great and magical”

Unfortunately one cannot fight socialism with socialism. Having nationalized the banks,
bailing out corporate fat cats, giving tax money to rich farmers and absentee land owners,
prescription drug benefits to seniors and tax breaks to oil companies, the idea that the
top tax rate going from 35 to 40 percent (it used 90 percent during the New Deal, and 70
percent in the 1970s) is coming of Karl Marx is silly considering that Marx is already
with us and has been endorsed by the Republican Party! 95% of government does is redistribute
wealth and no attempt has been made by any recent Republican Administrations to change
this. In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to increase it.

The GOP had their chance to nominate a freedom candidate with Ron Paul who could have effectively made all
of Pat’s arguments but decided to go another direction (actually
the same direction) Fine then. And now they will pay.

In fact, we’ll all pay for that matter.

Pat is probably not immune to the notion that the richer people get the greedier they become. I don’t buy this idea that a handful of good guys pay all the taxes in this country and now Obama wants to take even more of their hard-earned cash. Please. As long as Republicans support modern day slavery by ensuring that the country is flooded with illegals to do their labor for pennies, they have no reason to complain about someone demanding they wipe some of the breadcrumps off their table.
We’ve taken capitalism to the extreme, we’re letting the crooks run the country, and setup a social system where, unless you are a soulless beast, you’ll never live in comfort. We’ve got to moderate things now a bit. I’m pretty sure that those few that pay all the taxes in Buchanan’s world will find ways to hide their money so Obama won’t find it and give it away. Things need to change for the betterment of this country- and Republicans are as usual out of ideas when their corporate bosses don’t fax them their latest scam instructions to empty the nation’s coffers.

By his last two articles, it’s evident that Pat can finally hear the Fat Lady singing.

One might give some ‘distractions’ from the promises as well. Applicants for the highest security clearance are not to be given a presumption of innocence. With associations and affinities as disqulaifying as Ayers and Dohrn, the electorate granting the security clearance, is obliged to responsibly treat the command-in-chief of the armed forces, not go in for therapy or redistribution-in-chief.

Go get em Pat.Why would any white person vote for a leftist black nationalist.Many of these posters have allowed their dislike for John McCain--which I share--to blind them to the fact that BHO is a dangerous radical.

On the subject of taxes, Buchanan is ignoring the fact that the Social Security Payroll tax is really an income tax, and a regressive one at that. Socail Security Payroll taxes are 40% of all federal revenue, yet are only paid on income below--I think it is $80,000.

Greenspan raised the Social Security Payroll taxes to hid the failure of the REagan Tax cuts..to hide the size of the deficits that resulted. As Social Security Income taxes were incorporated into the federal income tax stream, there is no argument that they are a “buffer” for the babyboomers’ retirement. They are in fact, an income tax.

However, Social Security payroll taxes are NOT subject to standard deductions like income taxes, and are not paid on income above the maximum of $80,000 Or is it still $50,000?

Thus, if you include the total income tax paid---12% of all income--it makes a lie of the contention that the rich pay the bulk of ALL income taxes. In fact, if the income tax is factored into to the total income taxes paid, the reality is that the top 10% of the richest of the rich pay LESS then teh bottome 90% in “income taxes”. Most middle class Americans pay more in Social Security payroll taxes then they pay in income taxes.

So let’s stop the nonsense that Obama’s tax cut proposals are “soaking the rich”..his tax cuts are a recognition of the reality that the rich do NOT pay their fair share of the federal tax burden.

I don’t like Obama either, but if he wins, it will be because the white working class has become fed up with being distracted by the likes of Buchanan and the Conservative movement on the “culture war”, while the oligarchs continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us.

Amen Joe Populist! And not only are they getting soaked while those above and below them
pay little or no taxes, they also have to carry the burden of the deficit and all the
programs that benefit special interests at their expense as well while their jobs are
being shipped overseas.

What’s needed is a way to scrap the income tax in favor of an easier and fairer way
to raise revenue, like tariffs and customs as we used to do. All the income tax does is
make it easier for the governmemt to raise money in order to waste it.

“If Barack Obama is not a socialist, he does the best imitation of one I’ve ever seen. “

Well, if Obama isn’t a republican, he does a great imitation of one.  McCain is also a socialist,since you obviously haven’t noticed, just like almost every other republican politician I’ve seen.  There are a tiny handful of conservatives among republican officeholders, but I suspect that they outnumber the conservatives in the rest of the GOP membership.

I wish the two parties would finish their merger and stop this pretense of being at odds with each other.  It has become pretty tiresome.

it’s always nice to be reminded that, however much of a protectionist he might be, Pat truely is an enemy of the managerial state.

Seems to me that all the people ragging on Pat here wouldn’t know a socialist if he bit them in the ass. Obama reminds me of the lowlifes I met in the communes of the 60’s and 70’s in Germany’s universities, hell-bent on avoiding work, and praising the superior model of the East German “workers and farmers paradise”. Nobody can assert with a straight face that Obama ever put in an honest day of work (and no – community activism does not count) and this is equally valid for Michelle, who collects $300,000 a year for a “pretend job”. These parasites survive well by promising the intellectually challenged a free ride. Watch Obama break all his campaign promises once he is in power and move millions more of his favorite supporters onto our – the taxpayer’s - payroll for more “pretend” jobs.
This does not mean that Republicans presently feeding at the public trough are any better, just take a flight and see the nonsensical “pretend jobs” at the TSA. This election is like an American version of German’s choice between Adolf Hitler and Karl Liebknecht. The choice is between the National and the International Socialists.
Pat is right by pointing out that we slid over the years slowly down the path to serfdom to the state, no matter who we elect. The only way to correct the problem is by severely restricting the role of the state in our lives, because that’s what socialism is.

W.Hoermann said: “This election is like an American version of German’s choice between Adolf Hitler and Karl Liebknecht.”

Finally, was wondering when the Fuhrer would be introduced into this presidential campaign. Stalin, anybody ?

“Obama reminds me of the lowlifes I met in the communes of the 60’s and 70’s in Germany’s universities, hell-bent on avoiding work, and praising the superior model of the East German “workers and farmers paradise”.”

now THAT is random

In point of fact, there was a Marxist coup in 2000, when the old hands from Trotsky’s Fourth International took over. If you can find their constitutional authority for the Federal Executive’s acquisition and maintenance of an overseas empire, never mind for things like wire-tapping, then you will be doing very well indeed.

By contrast, Obama could quite reasonably be portrayed as the most conservative candidate for at least sixty years: an economic patriot ("protectionist"), a foreign policy realist ("isolationist"), and electorally in hock to the biggest “Nativists” and some of the biggest moral traditionalists in America, namely the blacks and their churches.
I have just been told, by someone who knows for certain, that the Republican leaders in the House now expect to lose forty seats, while those in the Senate are bracing themselves for a filibuster-proof sixty Democrats, along with President Obama.

A liberal one-party state? Well, no, not necessarily. It depends who the forty more House Democrats, and the sixty Democratic Senators, are. Those likely to win even Democratic primaries in normally deep red states are not likely to be either morally and socially liberal diehard capitalists and warmongers (like the Clintons, although Bush has done everything they ever wanted and then some, whatever he might say or have said), or morally and socially liberal economic populists and foreign policy realists (who are actually quite rare, there as here, and who tend to be not so much populists as just Leftists, there as here).
No, they are most likely to be morally and socially conservative economic populists and foreign policy realists, the sort of people whom a primary system would produce in much of the United Kingdom if we were lucky enough to have such a thing.

Congressmen Altmire, Berry, Boren, Costello, Cuellar, Davis, Donnelly, Ellsworth, Holden, Kildee, Lipinski, Marshall, McIntyre, Melancon, Mollohan, Murtha, Oberstar, Ortiz, Peterson, Rahall, Skelton, Shuler, Stupak, Taylor, Wilson, et al are on course to be joined by figures such as Bobby Bright (AL-02, a Baptist deacon), Parker Griffith (AL-05, a pro-life doctor and endorsed by Alabama’s State Fraternal Order of Police), Doug Heckman (GA-07, a special forces colonel in the Army Reserves and endorsed by General Wesley Clark), Mike Montagano (IN-03), David Boswell (KY-02), Don Cazayoux (LA-06), Joseph Larkin (MI-11), Travis Childers (MS-01), Jim Esch (NE-02), Steve Driehaus (OH-01), Bill O’Neill (OH-14) and Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03).
Meanwhile, the Senate already includes staunch pro-lifers such as Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. It also includes Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, an economically populist opponent of the neoconservative war agenda, and a cultural conservative who served as Navy Secretary in the Reagan Administration.
If the filibuster-proof sixty mark is reached, then it will be reached in such persons as Ronnie Musgrove (MS, who as State Governor signed the law banning public funding of abortion) and Bob Conley (SC, a traditional Catholic, Ron Paul activist, and opponent of the bailout).
I know why neocons are worried.

Conservatives, on the other hand, should be ecstatic.

, http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com

The top tax rate could be 10%, 35%, 50% or 80% and it would not matter a whit in the long term because the Empire War Project and zero sum game globalism is insuring that the Federal Project will self-destruct.

Tinkering with the contents of the car as it plummets down the abyss aint going to make the landing any less harsh.

The liberals will often cite Oliver Wendell Holmes who said something like he “likes taxes because they buy civilization”. Well, aside from the faulty premises and half truths of this statement, the last 16 years have pretty well demonstrated that in our case, taxes are buying the destruction of civilization.

Anyhow, even when redistributed , debt is still debt. See: “Sub Prime “ and “Credit Defalt Swaps”

The only truly reasonable and morally defensible income tax is the flat rate tax - with no deductions whatever and set at a level enabling the poor to live.

Payroll taxes are supposed to go to your account. They support you from YOUR earnings. Using them in the argument that everyone pays taxes is intellectually lazy. The majority of people in this country also pay state taxes and everyone pays sales tax. If you are going to argue that the poor pay the majority of taxes, why don’t you discuss the taxes aimed directly at the most successful, i.e. the “death tax”, capital gains, or luxury taxes. These surely make up a considerable amount of revenue for Papa Gov, and they are not paid by the “Average Joe”.

Income taxes are taken by Govt and used however they feel.
In the case of Obama, he has said he will send non tax payers a check that would come directly from the increase in the top wage earner’s taxes. The real whiner’s in this issue are the ones crying about not getting a fair shake and wanting to see the “rich” punished.

Those that argue a flat tax is the most fair must remember that it still gives the power of collecting it to the Gov. The most fair is a consumption tax; plain and simple.

If you want to see the future just look at New Jersey!

Consumers, acting in the marketplace, should determine which companies succeed or fail. Business success should not depend on which companies can hire the slickest lobbyists.
Every dollar the taxpayers send to Detroit will be one less dollar that will be available in the productive sector of the economy. This means fewer jobs in other industries, fewer jobs in the service sector, and fewer jobs in all other fields.
A federal bailout deprives other sectors of the economy of resources. Moreover, a bailout delays the much-needed restructuring of the US auto industry, much as handouts to the proverbial worthless brother-in-law enables him to continue sitting on the couch all day instead of putting his life back in order.
Foreign companies with plants in America are much more successful. It baffles me that politicians want to reward incompetence. Actually, it’s not that surprising. Detroit probably spends a lot more on lobbyists. Too bad they don’t put an equal amount of time and effort into improving their goods and services.
I don’t care if the bailout is profitable for government. The economic damage occurs because politicians interfere in the allocation of resources. Government intervention is a big reason why European welfare states grow slower, have higher unemployment, and lower living standards than America. We should not emulate nations such as France and Germany.
Five years ago, a merger of GM and Chrysler would probably be killed by the antitrust bureaucrats. Now the politicians want to subsidize the merger?!?
Bankruptcy almost surely will make consumers a bit more wary, but a bailout ensures that the auto companies won’t change the bad policies that got them in trouble. Better to restructure now. You don’t cure an alcoholic by giving him more to drink.

Greenspan raised the Social Security Payroll taxes to hid the failure of the REagan Tax cuts.

How DARE you mention that? And in a Pat Buchanan column, too. Next, you’ll bring up billions in subsidies paid to oil companies and corporate farming interests, laws leveraged to absolutely protect and coddle the American finance system. The fact that working class and poor have paid for Republican tax cuts with their own taxes - which cut a lot deeper than those of that cushy top 5 percent!

Why… this is CLASS WARFARE!!!

Given that the wealthiest Americans are a bullwark in Left-Wing political support, that Wall Street is now a Left-Wing institution, and that high taxes dampen economic growth which in turn would decrease Third World immigration, it seems that higher tax rates for the wealthy are just the thing to help the cultural Right in our civilizational war with the Gramscian-Marxist Left.  Go ahead, President Obama, raise those upper rates and get the money from your rich pals on the Left- Gates, Winfrey, Powell, Paulson etc..- and submerge the American economy so that the Third World might go back to where they belong.

Happy 70th birthday, Mr. Buchanan !

Jayson wrote: “Payroll taxes are supposed to go to your account. They support you from YOUR earnings.”

Social Security was supposed to be a “pay-as-you-go” proposition, it is NOT a savings account. It is interesting that you contend it is savings account, ‘cause if that is SO, then Reagan and YOU and the wealthy elite you speak on behalf of, are guilty of THEFT. After all, there is no “trust fund”, no bank account, no savings---the money was spent to hide the FAILURE of YOUR ideas--the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves. They don’t and only an idiot would deny it. Instead, it was used by Greenspan and Reagan to HIDE the failure of your “libertarian” political economy, as well as the failure of “Lazy Fare” economic ideas.

Jayson sez: “The majority of people in this country also pay state taxes and everyone pays sales tax. If you are going to argue that the poor pay the majority of taxes, why don’t you discuss the taxes aimed directly at the most successful, i.e. the “death tax”, capital gains, or luxury taxes. These surely make up a considerable amount of revenue for Papa Gov, and they are not paid by the “Average Joe”.”

Look, state and local taxes have nothing to do with the federal budget, so you’re mixing up your confusion with your ignorance, and it is a potent mix indeed.

For instance, sales taxes are the most REGRESSIVE taxes there are--as the lower you are on the economic scale, the more sales tax you pay as a proportion of your income.

Another idiocy you utter is your view of capital gains taxes, as the tax on labor---labor income---is 2 or 3 times the tax on sitting on your money...the rich pay a lot less for sitting on their asses, coupon clipping or harvesting profits from speculation--most often their speculation comes at a cost for teh rest of us.

And well, your idea that “luxury taxes” are a burden on the rich---well the very idea contradicts itself. As for the “death” tax, well, again---there are plenty of trust fund babies around to disprove that addition idiocy. It is hard to see why a self-proclaimed “libertarian” would be advocating the return of the aristocracy, but then “libertarianism” was always the ideology of feeble minded, hormone afflicted teenage males, it is not to be taken any more seriously then equalitarian liberralism or Marxist Communism. All three seem to be ideological zeoltry defending oligarchy.

How dare anyone question the AUTHORITY that is Joe Populist. Populist indeed. Anyone offering dissent will be shouted down immediately. Remember 4 legs good 2 legs bad.

On one hand you painfully lament the plight of the poor and how horrible gov. is when they screwed up a program that they installed. Then, in the same breath, gleefully announce that its about time these very heroes did something to get us some help. Are you schizo?

I guess as long as one is blinded by pure jealousy or envy the only thing that will suffice is to “eat the rich”.

The logical conclusion to your populist crap is the very idea you say is equal to libertarianism; Marxism.

Until Joe Populist is World Czar nothing will be fair I guess.

Tax cuts do pay. And studies will support that. The other half of that equation is spending. Hiding deficits with social security does not prove any fallacy. It only proves that people were spending more than they earned.

Sales tax is regressive? So the more I spend the less I pay? Your example is weak. How do I spend money I don’t have on non necessity items? Again, that is behavioral not policy.

You claim that these taxes are not part of the federal budget and then say payroll taxes SHOULD be called an income tax. Nice try.

I never said the taxes aimed at the successful were a burden. I used them to make a point that more people benefit from them than are charged.

Your ideas can lead to interesting outcomes though. When Clinton levied a luxury tax on yachts, the people that suffered were yacht builders. See, the rich know how to spend and make money wisely, so they just bought used boats or didn’t buy any at all. It’s all part of that ignorant libertarian fiscal policy that you disdain.

Keep buying into the us against them idea. It’s done very little to change anything and only propped up those in charge.