Surprise, Surprise: John McCain was for 'Socialism' Before He was Against It
By: Ron1
Published On: 10/22/2008 11:59:11 AM
Once again, Jon Stewart proves that he and his research staff are WAY more interested in a substantive discussion of the issues and exploration of the candidates' backgrounds than the establishment media are.
At this point and time, the McCain campaign's stance appears to be: nationalizing banks? Not socialism. Shifting tax burdens, or, more accurately, shifting tax burdens in order to not plunge this country even deeper into debt? Socialism AND class warfare! Cutting taxes on the super wealthy, thereby adding to the debt that future generations will be responsible for paying off? Pro-growth economics!
Note, of course, the very reasonable response that McCain circa 2000 gave to this exact question (at the end of the video), Colin Powell's very reasonable response to this question during his endorsement of Barack Obama, etc.
Unfortunately, about 30% of the country eats this claptrap up -- a majority of whom actually benefit from Obama's tax plan, a plan which is also more fiscally responsible than McCain's. It shows you that, even after we win this election, there's a long way to go to remake the institutions of politics and the media to better inform and engage our fellow citizens.
Comments
Defnition of "socialism" (Lowell - 10/22/2008 12:06:08 PM)
from
Online Britannica.
"social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources"
Uh, Senator McCain? I believe that would be the Wall Street bailout you just voted for, wherein the federal government takes over a huge sector of the (formerly) private economy. You damn dirty socialist! Hahahaha. :)
Words apparently don't have any meaning anymore (Ron1 - 10/22/2008 12:14:44 PM)
Luckily, this doesn't appear to be swaying the public at all -- just the latest and most desperate of a campaign on 'tilt'.
Still, in the bailout debate, the actual Socialist, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was fighting against the initial bailout plan enacted (wanting much more oversight, strict executive pay limits, etc.) while many 'free market' Republicans and Democrats were happy to go along. I'm not trying to demagogue this issue, because quasi-nationalizing the banks was probably our only good recourse, but it shows you what puzzling times we live in.
would someone pry Stewart's show off the Comedy channel (fuzed - 10/22/2008 12:06:48 PM)
Or maybe just switch station names with Fox News. He's crossing the line from entertainment to news, and making news fun. If he doesn't watch out, truth will become mainstream, and he'll be out of a job.
Actually, his show would be a great replacement (Lowell - 10/22/2008 12:09:17 PM)
for the CBS, NBC, or ABC evening "news" shows. Or any of the cable networks. Note that I didn't mention Fox, because they're not even remotely "news," just a right-wing propaganda channel and anger enhancement network.
I like this idea (Ron1 - 10/22/2008 12:11:38 PM)
Plus, I'm pretty sure Fox already uses "Sheep F*$ker" in its regular discussions of Democrats, so censorship won't even be necessary!
Fight the Socialism Smear (mmc0412 - 10/22/2008 12:21:04 PM)
We all know Obama isn't a socialist, but the way to fight the smear is to turn it to what it really is. It's demand-side economics (still in a free market society) vs supply-side economics. There's nothing socialist about Obama's plans. Since Reagan, we've been supporting supply-side economics. This has led to tax breaks for corporations and the rich. At the corporate level, instead of investing in new ideas to generate growth, they saturated the American market with existing ideas, then had to take them overseas to achieve growth, cut workers, shipped jobs overseas and gave the money that should have been invested in new ideas to their CEOs thereby increasing the ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay from something like 25 to 1 to 250 to 1. This all has led to overvalued stocks and real estate that tanked leading to a financial crisis - and this now has happened twice in the last 20 years (S&L crisis nearly 20 years ago). Here we are again. History has repeated. We cannot keep on this track like McCain wants to do. Now, we've bailed out these institutions - another reward for poor performance. We are rewarding poor performance over and over again. Would any company keep rewarding poor performance for the average worker? No way. Obama's plan is to turn it to demand-side economics. Give the tax breaks to the drivers of the economy - the average American consumer. If consumers spend, the economy will grow again. Obama will give corporations tax breaks for new ideas, such as green energy which has far reaching benefits and will keep jobs here. I've used this argument with several conservatives and it shuts them right up.
McCain's Tax Increase (SullyEsq - 10/22/2008 1:36:12 PM)
Interestingly, McCain's proposal to tax health care benefits is a much larger tax increase on small business than anything Obama has proposed. By taxing health care benefits, the employee pays higher income taxes (offset by the $5000 credit), but ALSO, the employer AND employee EACH pay 7.5% payroll taxes (FICA) on the value of the health insurance. This raises the cost to the employer of employer provided health care by 7.5%, meaning that small business owners will have to take a hit on profitability, or cut compensation some way, such as reducing health coverage. This is going to hurt Joe the Plumber and his employees much more than Obama's changes to the top brackets.
taxes (carol17 - 10/22/2008 10:19:13 PM)
OBAMA AGAINST RICH PEOPLE??? JUST BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOW HAVE TO PAY THE SAME % OF TAXES OR A LITTLE MORE THEN THE 95% OF AMERICAN WORKERS!!?? WHAT A CONCEPT!! THE RICH GET BAILED OUT BY THE WORKERS BUT GOD FORBID THAT THEY SHOULD PAY BACK ANYTHING. ONE LOOP HOLE AFTER ANOTHER. GIVE BIG BUSINESS A TAX BREAK NOT MAINSTREAM AMERICA, GIVE OIL COMPANIES MILLIONS/BILLIONS BUT NOTHING FOR MAINSTREAM AMERICA. THAT IN A NUTSHELL IS McCAIN. THAT IS WHY I WILL VOTE OBAMA. HE HAS TO BE BETTER THAN THAT.