McCain, Obama and Joe the Plumber




After a brief back and forth Q&A at an Oct 11, 2008 campaign event for Senator Obama, a man, know known as Joe the Plumber has become famous (yes he has an entry in wikipedia).

Senator McCain uses the Q&A to charge Senator Obama with being a redistributionist.

Senator Obama denies that he is a redistributionist.

The fact of the matter is that Senator Obama is one and so is McCain because both advocate retention of the current progressive income tax system (with modest modifications). This is somewhat of a terminology issue rather than an issue of hypocrisy so I will not charge either of them with hypocrisy.

The fact of the matter is that the U.S. has a progressive income tax system. A recent study by the OECD actually classifies the U.S. as the most progressive in the world (or at least among the ones they studied).

Like any study, this one has some flaws since:

1. it only measures income and social security tax against reported income
2. the data collection in the various countries varies in comprehensiveness and accuracy
3. it doesn't include sales tax and property tax and excise taxes (although the US has a relatively low sales tax compared to most countries VAT and so this might actually favor the US 'progressiveness' index somewhat - as far a property taxes, I don't have much of clue about what other countries do; the high excise taxes of some countries probably contribute to progressiveness).

I suppose it would be too inconveniently honest of Senator Obama to say "yes I will try to make the system slightly more progressive" or for Senator McCain to say "I propose to keep the system progressive but slightly less than it is now".

BTW, I recall one of the reasons I did not keep renewing the subscription I had with The New Republic (TNR), that I had inherited from my mother,) is that TNR kept having article after article advocating means testing of social security benefits on the grounds that the social security taxation of income is regressive (the other reasons were that since I read the WaPost, I pretty much already get exposed to the liberal viewpoint).

Of course it is true that social security taxation of income is regressive (income above, say $100k isn't taxed). However social security benefits are very progressive, in fact far more so than the taxation side is regressive.

This doesn't mean I necessarily oppose means testing of social security benefits or extending the income limit for social security taxation (the latter would be easier to administer so if we have to do one or the other, extension of the income limit seems preferable). I simply disliked the intellectual dishonesty of a magazine which frequently prides itself on its honesty.

Sarah Palin Redistributionist?

Governor Palin, like Senator McCain have recently criticized Senator Obama for being, in essence, a redistributionist, that is, someone who wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Whether the criticism is true is not the issue I'm going to deal with.

Instead the issue is whether Governor Palin is herself a redistributionist by virtue of Alaska's oil and gas severence fee and the Petroleum Trust. The latter group takes proceeds from the former and distributes some of it to Alaska citizens.

A blogger for the Atlantic, Marc Armbinder has a post on this subject in which he, implies (I think in a tongue in cheek way) that Palin is being a hypocrite on this point. He says, in part,

"Palin taxed oil company profits and cut $1200 checks for every Alaskans.

That's spreading the wealth. Redistributing some money.

The McCain campaign talks about Palin's executive experience.

So Obama might have socialistic inclinations... Palin's gotten it done."

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Well. There are some problems with the accusation of hypocrisy here. One problem is that the Alaska Petroleum Trust was set up in the 1980s and Palin is simply administering an existing program. The other, more important problem is that the Oil and natural gas in the portion of the Prudhoe basin where the product is produced is property of the State of Alaska. The State charges companies a fee for taking the product from the basin. This is quite a different matter than the case where the Government taxes income because the government doesn't own the income in the first place.

Cute analogy but no hypocrisy.

Luxury Jet at the World Wildlife Fund

At one of their websites, the WWF has Tips on What to do on Global Warming.

"Reduce your air travel.
Although air travel can be very convenient, the emissions from planes contribute significantly to climate change. When possible, use another form of transportation such as the train or bus."

At another website, they advertise a private jet excursion as a fundraiser,

This site says in part,

"Trip Overview One of the tips is:

Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by a luxury private jet. Touch down in some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see the top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans. Explore natural and cultural treasures in remote areas of South America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa.

To reach these remote corners, travel on a specially outfitted private jet that carries just 88 passengers in business-class comfort."

Probably they will buy 'carbon offsets' (all the sanctimony with none of the inconvenience). Without the belief in carbon offsets this would be obvious hypocrisy even to the WWF.

Does Hypocrisy Describe It?

An article in Commentary called, "

Hypocrisy Doesn’t Begin To Describe It"

accuses Senator Obama of fraud which is (in the author's opinion) worse than hypocrisy. The author, Jennifer Rubin, first quotes someone who (I think) accuses Obama of hypocrisy, then disagrees with it in part.

Here is a portion of the article (the quote that Rubin disagrees with),

"...Obama’s obfuscation regarding Ayers is, in a sense, the homage that vice pays to virtue - a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that the political culture of Chicago, and especially of Hyde Park, is more accommodating than perhaps it should be to a morally dubious figure like Ayers, and that having accommodated himself to those accommodations Obama now recognizes the need to behave as if he didn’t."

and here is the disagreement,

"more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he’s a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises - and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Francisco (original source spelled the city wrong) liberal donors."

Rubin comes to the conclusion that this is fraud, not hypocrisy.

"There is no end to it — everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It’s fraud."

All this goes whether Obama either,
- Pretends to believe what he doesn't believe.
- Pretends to be what he isn't.

Let's say Senator Obama has pretended to be what he isn't. This isn't too much of a stretch since, unless he has changed his mind about what he believes in, he is portrayed as a "I love America" kind of guy in some of his ads (where he talks about the values of Kansas where he lived for a few years) and also let his "God Damn America" pastor (noted in the article) think he believed otherwise.

That is, if he is the "I love America" guy he was a hypocrite in pretending to support his "God Damn America" pastor. If he believed in "God Damn America" he is a hypocrite now.

Ah. But which is it or is it something else. Suppose Senator Obama believes in neither "I love America" nor "God Damn America" suppose he just believes that he is destined to be President and whatever pretend belief advances the goals at the opportune time is the 'right' pretend belief. Which is to say, perhaps he believes that hypocrisy is a necessary act to advance a larger goal.

As to fraud, well, this blog deals with hypocrisy, not fraud.

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UPDATE:

My cousin Ellen thinks that Senator Obama has a defense against hypocrisy based on nuance. For example, say Obama had a nuanced position on Ayers (let's say he disagreed with Ayers on the inherent criminality of America but thought Ayers had valuable ideas on education). This would be a decent defense before the egregious failure of Ayer's education ideas in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and even after that failure if Obama thought there were good ideas that came out of it (which he has never said but may believe).

However, on the Jeremiah Wright issue, I don't see a lot of room for nuance. At one point in the campaign, Obama said he thought his church really wasn't very controversial. Then after videos of Wright's sermons were posted on internet sites, he said that he loved Wright but sometimes disagreed with what he said but he would never leave the church. Then after a sermon at the church preached by a Catholic priest (who had been a indirect grantee from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and also from the Woods Foundation another charitable trust in which both Obama and Ayers served), Obama left his church. At no time in this process did Obama ever say, "I used to believe X but now believe not-X. Thus the nuance defense in this case is pretty iffy.