McCain in 2000 Defended ‘Progressive’ Taxation from Charge of ‘Socialism’: ‘When You Reach a Certain Level of Comfort, There's Nothing Wrong with Paying Somewhat More’

you guys are crazy. theres no socialism in our country. Socialism is spreading the wealth completely even across the board. You don't think Obama doesn't know what it's like to work hard for what you want? Well let me tell you folks, he does, hes the first black president. I think he recognizes that we can't continue to have a growing lower class. If people can't afford to buy houses, cars, etc. what do you think the rich people are gonna do. I'm pretty sure there gonna stop making money. And then prices of everything will go up because theres less demand. Rich people pay more money because they have more money.
lets say you had a man who hasn't eaten for a week with a plate of cookies, and you have a man who just got done dinner with a plate of cookies. who are you gonna take the cookies from? it'd be pretty messed up to take it from the hungry man. same thing with taxes.
and i dont think this encourages slackers. Sure some people dont work hard so they don't make money. But from where im from 20 minutes away from my sheltered over funded school is inner city baltimore. There school gets nothing. Try and tell me we have equal opputrunity, cause we dont. And all Obama wants to do is try and get people on there feet so we can reshape our economy.

Dear Bama Zombies. Have fun giving you money away to the rest of the country in the next 4 years. Nobama won't last longer than that....

James Danley:

Rather than repeating Republican talking points about "the real Barack Obama", can you tell us who the real John McCain is??

Is he the guy FOR the Bush tax cuts of the guy against them?

Is he FOR a woman's right to chose or against it?

Is he FOR a progressive tax policy or is he against it?

Why is it that the same people who brought us George W. Bush think that they have any credibility when it comes to chosing a good President, anyway??

Maria saya:
"I must have missed something, because I don't see where this compares to Obama wanting the top 1 to 5 percent paying all the taxes and not making 95% of us pay anything."

Geez...you missed a LOT, Maria! If this is what passes for logical reasoning among Americans, no wonder McCain still has a chance to be President!

Obama is not talking about ELIMINATING taxes for 95% of Americans. He is talking about REDUCING them.

What passes for "thinking" among my fellow Americans really frightens me!

I was wondering ,if Joe the Plumber is not a licensed plumber ,could it be he might not be a real voter?
And if he is so against spreading the wealth around"because he doesn't want to take anyone's hard earned money" Then why did he take the $$$ somebody collected (donations) to pay HIS TAXES ???

Watch out everybody.....remember Daddy Bush.."NO NEW TAXES"....McCain is still sounding like a Bush.....I am totally in favor of spreading the wealth around. Yes I work and have worked for over 35 years...never have been on Welfare. I think John and Cindy might be worried about their own elite pocketbooks not mine. By the way I am WHITE and I am for OBAMA

The top 1% of income earners currently account for 40% of the federal income tax revenue; the top 5% of income earners currently account for 60% of the federal income tax revenue; and the bottom 40% of the income earners do not pay any federal income tax.

Under Sen. Obama's plan the top 1% would increase their tax burden to approximately 45%-50%; with the top 5% increasing their tax burden to approximately 65%-70%; and the bottom 40%--who currently don't pay any income tax--will receive tax credits.

All Sen. Obama is really doing is giving even more power to the wealthiest Americans instead of giving power to the middle class. That's because the wealthiest Americans can just stop making new money, live on their old money and the our economy completely shuts down.

Sen. McCain's plan rewards success and will encourage the poor and middle class to keep striving for the American Dream. Sen. Obama's plan will punish success and dash the hopes and dreams of the poor and middle class by making them even more beholden, make that enslaven, to the federal government.

Maria,

I think you may be misunderstanding Obama’s tax plan. The 95% are not going to stop paying taxes. They (we) will still pay taxes, although many will get a tax cut. Meanwhile, the wealthy will have their taxes raised back to the pre-Bush levels of the 1990s.

I must have missed something, because I don't see where this compares to Obama wanting the top 1 to 5 percent paying all the taxes and not making 95% of us pay anything. I believe Jake had another blog about Obama's taxes, where he figured that instead of the $250,000 limit as Obama claims, it was actually the people earning around $110,000 that would start paying considerably more and McCain still had a tax break.

Trying to deflect and confuse the issue by trying to twist things so as to fit Sen. McCain into a definition of socialism it a neat trick. The problem is there is a huge difference between stealing from the wealthy to spread the wealth among the poor and middle class and spreading the opportunity for the poor and middle class to become wealthy.

A follow up on the Welfare Reform Act: I find it interesting that Bill Clinton ran on Welfare reform during his 1992 campaign. And that helped him win the White House. Yet during the first two years of his first term, when the Democrats held a 57-43 majority, there was no Welfare reform. It wasn't until three months before the 1996 election that he finally signed the Welfare Reform Act. And he used that as a fulfilled promise to win re-election.

Brooklyn Democrat wrote: "I fail to understand what's wrong with organizing and uniting people to advance their interests and get their needs met."

When there is a deeper underlying agenda then it is nothing more than exploitation.

If you recall, there was a young German man in the 1930s who organized and united his people to advance "their interests and get their needs met." But in doing so, he advanced his own agenda. The end justified the means.

The same can be said of ACORN. Their stated goals are commendable. But they have a very socialist underlying agenda. Take ACORN's goal of having the poor and lower income individuals owning their own home. There is no question that living in your own home is far better then living in public housing. BUT to that end they intimidated and extorted the banks to lower their lending standards -- greatly interfering with the free market and shattering our economy. What ACORN could have done was convince developers to donate 1%-5% of every home they build to a poor family. The developers would have received a tax break and a poor or low income family would have only had to worry about paying their utilities and property taxes instead of a 30-year mortgage.

Take voter registration for example. ACORN's goal of registering millions of unregistered voters is commendable. BUT they target a specific demographic who is more inclined to sympathize with their liberal socialist agenda. And they demean the entire election process when they encourage voter registration fraud by their threatening the people they hire to register voters to meet specific quotas or be fired.

Now as for Sen. Obama, he has been influenced by socialists and communists his entire life. He intentionally surrounded himself with these individuals. Many of these individuals not only hold strong anti-America and anti-Capitalist views but they have been activists in advocating those views.

Call it what you want. I just believe the American people deserve to know who the real Barack Obama is.

What's up with Palin's polar bear pin? Her position on global warming and oil drilling adversely affects the plight of polar bears. Why even wear an animal pin when you shoot wolves from helicopters? She is such a hypocrite. Even her accessories lie. This woman knows no decency.

Great post Brooklyn Democrat!! I agree with you 100%.

James -

I think you live in the wrong era. You would have been happier if you'd been around during the the 1940's and 1950's when Parnell Thomas (Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee) and Joe McCarthy were finding a "commie" under every bed and perfecting the "guilt by association" game.

Maybe you and Michelle Bachman can get together and reignite this stuff. The country would benefit from knowing who the real pro- and anti-Americans are.

As for Saul Alinksy, there's probably not an American community, labor or political organizer who has not read or been influenced by him. He was a joyful, respected, effective community organizer who taught have-nots how to form coalitions and get seats at the table.

I fail to understand what's wrong with organizing and uniting people to advance their interests and get their needs met. Unless you're wealthy enough to hire Rick Davis' lobbying firm, that's how things get done in America...from Main St. to Wall St.

Say it aint so, John! You mean you were for "socialism" and "spreading the wealth" before you were against it?

Like you were against off-shore drilling before you were for it?

Like you were against torture before you thought it was sorta okay?

Like you were for emigration reform and a "path to citizenship" before you figured out that the wing nuts didn't like it?

Like you were against the Bush tax cuts before you were for them?

Like you were for a "respectful, civil campaign" "without personal attacks" before you started running one of the sleaziest campaigns in modern history?

"Who is John McCain?" Does this man have any core principles left other than saying or doing whatever he thinks will work at the moment?

`...whether it was worth it and whether if he had been true to himself there wouldv'e been a different outcome."

Alpaig, it would not have made one whit of a difference.

The B O movement is not one of logic; it is blind to intellectual judgement and totally tuned out to any information which might prove negative to it's cause.

It has morphed totally on emotion and, yes,counted strongly on racial solidarity .

And as strongly as the racial involvement plays a part in this election... B O's campaign continues to play the "race" card with the finesse of a magician,

It also continues to play the sexist card... and the ageism .. or whatever the appropriate term for antipathy to the over 60s group would be.

Coupled with the buy-out of the media by the Dems and pettiness (as in "Palin campaign clothes" and "depends" et al,
except for right wing radio, all the free publicity has been granted to Obama.

(what ever happened to reciprocative air time.)

This election really had little to do with what McCain said or didn't.

Heck! it had little to do with what CLINTON said or didn't.... and she definitely was the the best choice of the three for this country!

None the less, McCain is the better of the remaining choices even though he doesn't come with the glitz of Obama.

And as for Palin, she makes a lot fewer rhetorical blunders thn Biden does.

Should B O win... with a Democratic congress, this country will be in B I G trouble.

McCain should have jumped ship to the Democrats when they tried to woo him over and then he wouldn't have to be selling his soul to have won the nomination and to try to win the Presidency as he is today and has been for awhile. The old McCain would have kept Murphy on board ; picked his first choices of Ridge or Lieberman as VP opposed the bailout until they came back with one with some regulatory teeth in it and no pork; wouldn't be listening to Hannity and Limbaugh and waging a campaign that he knows is not dignified. If he wouldv'e been the old McCain though then there would be no real true blue conservative in the this race but at least he would have lost , if he wouldv'e , with some dignity. I like McCain and I believe that McCain believes what he said in 2000 more than what he says right now but it's irrelevent because he's calling the shots and he's pandering to the very people he's had disdain for, the far right and I think when this is all said and done he'll have some real soul searching he will need to do and ask himself whether it was worth it and whether if he had been true to himself there wouldv'e been a different outcome.

They love throwing out big words without fully knowing or understanding their meanings. McCain was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them. I guess that makes him a socialist. Also when they engage in socialism, it's pro-American: Such as Gov. Palin taking some of the profits from the oil companies in Alaska and re-distributing them to citizens of the state. If that's not socialism , I don't know what the hell it is.

Mccain you liar! You have destroyed GOP. Life Long Republican here, but will be voting for OBAMA. Yes, do you get it. OBAMA is getting my vote and my friends votes. This GOP is not what we used to have. Get LOST!