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Point of View »Jim Hightower: Spread the Wealth

Jim Hightower: Spread the Wealth

By Jim Hightower | Posted on 11/18/2008

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Things will really change once Obama has Americans working on government infrastructure and green energy projects.

One of Sen. John McCain’s goofier political moves came in the last couple of weeks of the campaign when — with eyes darting, arms pumping frenetically and lips sneering — he assailed President-elect Barack Obama for saying, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower
Oh, wailed McCain, that’s vile socialism! And a chorus of right-wing harpies chimed in with overwrought accusations of “Marxism,” “communism” and outright “un-Americanism.” They thought they had caught Obama in a game-changing gaffe — omigosh, he just called for spreading America’s wealth!

The problem for the clueless McCainites, however, was that your average American was not repulsed, but cheered by Obama’s position. You could almost hear every working stiff in the land thinking to themselves: Hell, yeah, I’m for that — about time!

After all, for the past three decades, Wall Street and Washington have been using tax policy, trade policy, labor policy, regulatory policy, farm policy and every other policy they could think up to haul wealth from the workaday majority to the elites at the top. These forces of plutocracy have been fabulously successful. Since the early 1980s, when the new Gilded Age was launched as official policy, all of the net financial gains have flowed to the richest 5 percent of Americans, with the bulk of that going to the richest 1 percent and more than half of it going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent.

This deliberate concentration of American’s wealth has made our economy undemocratic and top-heavy, and now the whole thing is toppling. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said about the last great financial crash, “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

Or, to put it in the more colloquial terms of my Texas upbringing: Money is like manure — it only works if you spread it around.

That’s what Obama has in mind, and one of the most productive ways to achieve it is to implement his big idea of reinvesting in the gumption and genius of grassroots people. He proposes to put Americans to work on two huge national needs: the repair and expansion of our inadequate infrastructure, and the conversion to a green energy economy.

In the presidential campaign, Obama developed well-thought-out proposals to address both initiatives, enlisting millions of workers, small businesses, inventors, designers, programmers, engineers, teachers, trainers, environmentalists — even those dreaded community organizers!

Across the nation, from big cities to rural areas, the public’s essential assets are in obvious need of work. Such old assets such as bridges, schools, roads, libraries, subways, parks and community centers need fixes and upgrades. Meanwhile, new assets need to be developed and put in place, including high-speed trains, solar and wind installations, free broadband access for all and conservation retrofits for homes and buildings.

Yes, this will cost some serious money — Obama’s own tally totals more than $200 billion, and the real number is likely to top $500 billion. But, unlike the gabillions that Washington is presently doling out to the failed Wall Street wizards, this will be money that goes into the real economy — it’ll produce tangible facilities and improvements that will deliver returns to America for decades to come; it’ll be spread into millions of households, generating new grassroots economic activity; and it’ll tap into America’s latent can-do spirit, helping to restore our sense of national purpose and unity.

Too many pundits and politicos — including some weak-kneed Democrats — are urging Obama to scale down his ideas for America, to go slow and to slide over to the middle of the road. But as a farmer told me years ago, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

This election was about change, and the people were not voting for the small change of conventional politics. They were voting for big ideas, for boldness, and — yes — they were even voting to spread wealth to everybody.

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.

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» Mirror Imaging wrote on 11/18/08 @ 07:19 AM

“They were voting for big ideas, for boldness, and — yes — they were even voting to spread wealth to everybody.”

Here’s a big bold idea for spreading the wealth.  Let’s have industry welfare.  The surviving industry can bail out the non-surviving industry, i.e. Toyota and Honda can bailout the failing non-thinking auto industry.  And the successful banks can bail out the failing banks.  A sort of mirror image of what working class, tax-paying citizens will do for the social economy.

» Socialism is dead wrote on 11/18/08 @ 09:54 AM

America was never about envy until now, what a bunch of entitled babies. The pursuit of happiness means its up to you not government hand outs.

» Robert C. Meltzer wrote on 11/18/08 @ 02:23 PM

GM (who failed to deal with imports for decades), local governments (who failed to bank reserves against inclement financial weather), and voters (at least those who blame everyone but themselves for demanding what the country cannot afford and continue to elect populist politicians who promise something for everyone at no cost) all deserve blame.  There are few images quite so nauseating as that of corporations, governments, and individuals all lining up for government (i.e. taxpayer) handouts - the ultimate “i’ve gotta get my share” attitude.  Comparing this to pigs at the trough is an insult to pigs. 

BTW the real trigger behind all this is a small group of faceless individuals comprising the Financial Accounting Standards Board, who last November decided that all financial assets, whether or not performing, had to be marked down to whatever they might sell for in the marketplace of the moment.  This decision, known as FASB 157, caused massive writedowns by lending institutions, which in turned caused an increase in demand for capital by those institutions and a concomitant reluctance to lend - i.e. the credit crisis.  The scariest thing behind this is that FASB members are not elected officials, but their accounting pronouncements carry the weight of law and are enforced by the SEC.

» AN50 wrote on 11/18/08 @ 05:51 PM

Well said Robert, but hey the “o” will fix it all with Jim’s punish success and reward failure income redistribution. I just love how the useful idiots on the left always wrap their love of socialism up in flowery “workers’ paradise” rhetoric. Yet, it’s the workers who end up getting clocked in the end. BTW Jimmy, are you a worker bee or independently wealthy? Which would you rather be? I don’t know too many workers who want to be stuck in the same socio-economic class forever. Don’t see much incentive for that good ole entrepreneurial spirit if the Government is just going to take away your success and give it to some worthless lazy entitlement junky.

» The Real Cause wrote on 11/19/08 @ 07:42 AM

Okay let us talk about the real causes of the U.S. Auto Industry failure. Starting with the poorly written NAFTA agreement which is unfair to U.S. Companies in terms of labor costs, safety provisions, tax advantages and regulatory policy. If you add the fact that in other countries where Toyota and Honda are based the government pays for healthcare and not the employer. This represents over a $1K disadvantage per car. Then you add the poor business decisions by the Big 3 to not increase gas mileage standards. Finally, look at the relative compensation of the Big 3 Executives, nearly 300 times that of the executives of Toyota and Honda.

Plenty of blame to go around but lets look at the real causes. The problem now is that if you let them file bankruptcy it may be more costly than not. There are over 4 million jobs and $350 billion in annual business linked to this. Maybe the Big 3 should get a loan only if they address the issues I discussed above starting with executive pay and building cars people will purchase.


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