"Pinko" Palin and Her Socialist State

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

^{Palin in red & pink; "Pink for Palin" button available at Cafe Press}

Gov. Sarah Palin may be wearing a lot of red and pink these days, but listening to her speeches, she'll tell you she's the furthest thing from a commie pinko.

We all know politicians sound different when they're running for national office than they do when running for state office. But Palin takes the cake on this one.

This week, Hendrik Hertzberg writing for The New Yorker, quotes Palin talking about how awesome it is to be an Alaskan, just weeks before being chosen as McCain‘s running mate:

"And Alaska -- we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."       

Palin was referring to a program with clear socialist leanings in her own state. Starting in 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund started taking from the oil companies and giving to the people. This year, each Alaskan resident will get a check for $3,269. Palin herself pushed for a fuel cost increase of $1,200 per person this year.

I don't want to date myself, but I have to admit I'm about as old as the Alaska Permanent Fund. Were I born on that frozen tundra (instead of the partially-thawed tundra upon which I was actually born), I could have accumulated $31,678 to date, merely for being born in a different state. Maybe I'd even be able to pay back the government all that money I owe in student loans...

Not only that, but the state government in Alaska has a huge surplus thanks to the taxes on big oil. A surplus which, as Palin recently boasted, Alaskan politicians get to spend however they damn well please, with no federal intervention.

So that kind of socialism is OK, but making the tax structure a little more progressive? Pure pinko, as Palin describes it:

"Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth, which means - you know what that means... It means that government takes your money, (handed) out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, and Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. And yet to Joe the Plumber, he said it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with socialism."

You might protest, as some conservative bloggers have, that Palin is taking money from nasty oil companies, and not American citizens, for redistribution. But wait, there's more to Palin's socialist leaning than just the oil dividend check.

First, as we've noted before, Palin has no qualms about using taxpayer and donor money on herself and her family, in ways that may turn out to be unlawful or at least fraudulent.

Second, Alaska comes in as the number one state when it comes to pork barrel spending. That means Alaskan lawmakers brought in more money for state projects ("Bridge to Nowhere," anyone?) than any other last year. It also means that, in terms of federal spending per capita, Alaskans get more federal money than anyone else in the country.

According to classical definitions of socialism, it's characterized as a pre-communist period where wealth is redistributed, but done so in a markedly unequal way. Sounds to me like that's what's going on in Alaska. Badly-needed federal funds are being disproportionately funneled to a state with a plenty of money lying around.

Seems like the only person who really knows what socialism actually means is the Socialist candidate for president, Brian Moore.  On The Colbert Report, Moore cleared things up. Obama is not a socialist, in fact Moore said, "He's the furthest thing from it." Furthermore, Moore said McCain is "red-baiting."

Which brings us to our next topic: What worked for McCarthy may not work for McCain.

Not only is Palin's "S-word" smear hypocritical and a huge stretch, it's also not salient. It's almost as if McCain and other elders in his campaign told Palin to use this word (of which she doesn't seem to know the meaning) to take down Obama. But, for those of us who didn't grow up in fear of communist infiltration, socialism is more a point of view than a specter of dictatorship.

In fact, old recycled attacks on healthcare reform won't work with my generation either. "Socialized medicine" may have sounded pretty scary just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but several years without health insurance will change your mind; I can tell you from personal experience.

So maybe McCain isn't even trying to get people my age to vote for him. Fine. But if he is going for the Cold War crowd, he should reconsider his veiled threats to Medicare and Social Security.

Spreading the wealth may sound scary to people whose net worth is over $1 million, like Palin and McCain. Yes, those people will pay higher taxes. But, as Obama's new ad using his tax calculator shows, someone earning $60,000 will get many hundreds of dollars more in tax breaks under his plan than McCain's.

Bottom line? Spreading the wealth works for Joe the Plumber.  It may not work for Joe Biden's pocketbook, but that's an illustration of what he's willing to do to get this country back on track. Thanks, Joe, for being patriotic enough to pay higher taxes, so Joe the Plumber can save up to buy that business someday. And, so I can pay off my student loans.

There is something in this for those millionaires, too. As shown in a lengthy analysis in today's New York Times, McCain's projected 10-year deficit is significantly higher than Obama's. So even though rich people will pay higher taxes under Obama, their government won't pile on the debt in the name of unnecessary tax cuts.

The Republican tactic here in the waning days of this election season is betting that fear is more salient than math. That must be why everyone considers the economy to be a strong suit of Obama and the Democrats: They talk about the meaning, and not the color, of money.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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