Four Reasons to Spread the Wealth

JOHN MCCAIN HAS RECENTLY been harping on Obama's tax plan as "income redistribution", which we are supposed to believe is an attack on free markets, democracy, and everything America stands for.

So let's examine the facts:

1. To begin with, McCain's tax plan would also be "redistribution". He would offer a tax credit, just as Obama does, with two differences:
2. 1. He would tell us how we have to spend it (on medical insurance). Apparently, McCain thinks that American families can't be trusted with money, unless the government has earmarked it for a specific purpose.
   2. He would get the money by taxing the middle class—the very people who need fewer taxes, not more—while cutting the taxes of the very wealthy, who won't even notice.
      
      Just how many houses does a person need?
3. Obama, on the other hand, will tax the people who can afford multiple houses, not the middle class.
   
   He'll give his tax cut to the middle class, the ones who made those people rich—working Americans, who are trying to survive in a bad economy, and he'll trust us to figure out how it should be spent.
4. We have, and always will have, a "trickle-up" economy:
5. 1. The vast majority of wealth in this country is the result of the hard work of the middle class. But it's the nature of wealth to trickle up. The more you have, the easier it gets to save, invest, and get other people to make money for you. They don't say "the first million is the hardest" for nothing.
      
      The less you have, the harder it is to save and invest, and so more of your time and energy goes into making money for someone else. Eventually, most of that wealth gets concentrated at the top, among the wealthiest 1%.
   2. When that happens, the free market bogs down. The members of the middle class have less and less money to spend—even though they are the ones doing the work that creates the wealth—and so are faced with a desperate choice. They must either go without, or they must borrow, which means that more of their money trickles upward, in the form of interest.
   3. Sooner or later, they're borrowed out, and then there are no consumers to keep the economy running.
   4. This is not good for anyone, even the wealthy.
   5. The simplest solution is to tax the wealthy more, and the middle class less, allowing the people whose work produces the wealth to spend it on better lives, which puts it back into the economy, where it will still trickle up to the wealthy, eventually.
      
      This is a win for everyone.
6. Money is power.
7. 1. When a society such as ours allows all of the wealth and power to pool at the top, it cannot remain a democracy for long. There's no permanent solution for the influence the wealthy and large corporations have on the government. We can close one loophole, and they will find another.
   2. But there is one thing which really does make a dent in that influence—"spreading the wealth around". We can make sure that the wealthy pay more taxes, and the middle class pays less, so that the middle class is not completely without power.
   3. Obama's campaign has been largely financed by middle class people, exercising their power in small donations. We would all be better off, and America would be a more democratic country, if every campaign were financed that way. The more the middle class gets to keep of the wealth it produces, the more we "spread the power around" and the more democracy flourishes.

John McCain would help the wealthy become wealthier, and more powerful, at the expense of those who do the work.

He would give the middle class no tax break, unless the government dictated how it would be spent.

He would like this country to be controlled by the rich and the powerful—his friends who can't count their houses.

If you want to know who is putting his country first, and who puts himself and his friends first, ask yourself two questions:

When Obama is elected, will Obama's taxes go up or down?

And if McCain were elected, what would happen to his taxes?