On Good Morning America, Joe the Plumber said that it was unfair for someone to have to pay more just because they make more. He called it “socialist,” as do many conservatives. John McCain objected to this spreading the wealth around as being “class warfare.”
How did this socialist germ — the idea that wealthier people should pay higher taxes — creep into the American bloodstream? Through John McCain’s hero, Theodore Roosevelt. He championed the idea that the rich should not only pay more money but a higher rate, arguing explicitly that it contradicted the spirit of socialism.
Speaking about a progressive inheritance tax, Roosevelt said;
“A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.
“We have not the slightest sympathy with that socialistic idea which would try to put laziness, thriftlessness and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift and efficiency; which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country–a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves.
“But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.”
Roosevelt later also endorsed a progressive income tax:
“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth……
“No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar?s worth of service rendered?not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective, a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”
posted October 16, 2008 at 12:31 pm
1% of the US population owned 25% of the wealth in the late 70′s. Today, they own 40% of the wealth.
A larger 20% of us own 85% of the wealth. The other 80% of us get to divvy up the remaining 15%.
Somethin’ aint right around here, and it ain’t my math.
It’s our tax structure and so-called “free enterprise system”. Even Teddy could see that 100 years ago. Most economists will tell you that a grossly dissparate distribution of wealth drags an economy down, not up. Things must change before we start marching on DC with pitchforks and torches.
posted October 16, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Imagine that…a Teddy Roosevelt who would be run out of today’s Republican Party for being a socialist. Go figure!
posted October 16, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Here is how the government can make a lot of money, by make I mean steal! Adopt a national sales tax, then lay off the IRS, or at least reduce it by a factor of 90%. Now drop the income tax, and I’m pretty sure you would have your, steal from the rich mentality still in effect. How? Well, since I don’t buy $100K cars, nor do I spend exuberant amounts of money on clothes and jewelry I would pay less in taxes. The rich, however with their fancy cars that they don’t drive and the boats and yachts would in turn pay a lot in taxes. Furthermore, the drug dealer who currently makes millions selling crap on the streets would also end up paying their fair share. The shady fly by night wannabe construction worker would also end up paying their fair share.
The problem is today everyone wants a hand out.
posted October 16, 2008 at 5:55 pm
The Rich corporations rip off everyone else.
I have no problem with the richest in America being taxed.
How many multi-million dollar americans get that way thru honest work?
posted October 20, 2008 at 10:33 am
Thanks, Steven, for posting this. I’ve linked to it on TPM and my.BarackObama.com.
Bruce, go read up on progressive taxation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_taxation
Cheers,
posted October 21, 2008 at 10:11 am
Thanks for this post, Steven Waldman. I was Googling for just this type of information when I found your post. Other things I think we cannot avoid taking into account, I think, are the facts that a number of wealthy families made their fortunes through government contracts during wartimes, and many others have benefited from loopholes and other government actions on their behalf. In other words, the free market, as John Sidney McCain III has to know, is not always free. How sad to see him depart yet once again from one of his role models.
(BTW, now that we seen have Colin Polin endorse Barack Obama, I am wondering if Meg Whitman has endorsed anyone. Recall that those two, in addition to Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), were the three people Sen. McCain said at the Saddlebrook Forum that he would turn to for advice in a McCain White House.)
posted October 22, 2008 at 10:32 am
Don’t forget that Teddy Roosevelt, the claimed hero and supposed inspiration of so many conservative Republicans, left the Republican party in disgust to form the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) party. He was not only the last great Republican president, but the last of the liberal Republicans.
posted October 25, 2008 at 1:07 am
Interesting to read that so many leftists like to think that 99.99% of the millions of millionaires in this country made their money by profiting from warmongering or dishonest work. Makes it easier to steal from them, eh?
This is how losers view the world, that they would have more money if not for the rich, as if there were a fixed pot of gold in the universe and the wealthy merely bogarted it all for themselves.
BTW, I linked to your article from mine, Lewis Diuguid is an Idiot
posted October 27, 2008 at 10:58 am
Thank You! Steven, this is a great posting; I welcome your comments.
posted October 31, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I am not sure what is trying to be proved here. In using teddy as an example of a socialist one ignores his comments about no welfare but to earn your own way. Teddy use of money ws not to “spread the wealth” but to more reasonably distribute the ligitiamte costs of government and that governments role was to provide equal opportunity for all.
john
posted November 2, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Thank you Steve! If Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln were alive today, does anyone truly believe they would agree with most of the tenents of the current republican party. The true republican party is a party for minorities, reformers and progressives. Its very sad to see this great party started by abolitionist being taken over by the christian conservatives and the neo-conservatives.
I am a African American who would love to one day be able to support the Republican Party just like my ancestors did in the 19 century before the party turned its back on it’s roots and adopted the christian conservative ideology from the democratic party of old.
Please read my blog
http://www.christianconservkillingamerica.blogspot.com/
posted August 26, 2009 at 9:13 pm
For Bernie: I’ve heard this nonsense that “Our Society is not a (financial) zero sum game!” It was from Neil Bortz (spell?) as I recall. How sophmoric to suggest that essentially everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer and you get the picture. Career opportunities are very limited and this becomes proportional to population size i.e. more toilets means more toilets breaking, more plumbers needed and alot more crap to dispose of.
You may want to recall that Europeans not only fled religious persecution wanting such freedoms, but we seem to have forgotten (as a People) that in much greater numbers despite the historical myths, they left behind lands with limited to no opportunities to buy a piece of land to live on, attend a decent or ANY school, afford a doctor when needed, or even find enough meaningful work to feed themselves somewhat reliably year round.
I leave you with one example, of thousands around the world. Nigeria is and has been a country with tremendous oil and mineral wealth, it has been extracted for many years now. A handful of priveleged Nigerians and non-Nationals own this wealth–nearly all of it and the power to perpetuate that same wealth and power generation after generation–their choice entirely.
Now I’m sure some “compassionate conservative” pundit would offer the “It’s not a zero sum game” and I would point out that greed, like alcoholism is denied by the afflicted, and regularly by countering with any deceptions necessary. But in the end I ask you who is really being deceived? Overall, if you’re a survival-of-the-fittest thinker then nothing else matters but accumulating as much as possible. Just remember that holding such beliefs means you can’t complain when someone more powerful decides to take all that you have simply because they can and want to, perhaps with similar deceptions or even a club over the head.
posted December 20, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I’m not seeing how this proves that T.R. was socialalist.T.R. followed Lincoln’s word and heavily advocated,”…the proper sense of proportion in his(Lincoln’s)relative estimates of capital and labor,of human rights and property rights.”T.R. was fine with wealthy men.He frowed on”…man or class of men the right to enjoy power,or wealth,or position,or immunity,which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.”
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posted July 27, 2010 at 3:15 am
The church in the book of Acts in the Bible sold all their material things and used that money to help each other out. I believe in a hand-up but not hand-out. If I have more I have no problem giving out to someone that needs it, but not to the ones that are just lazy.
Right now http://www.renoplumbingexpert.com is doing ok but when we are doing great we love giving back to our community.
posted July 27, 2010 at 4:25 am
The church in the book of Acts in the Bible sold all their material things and used that money to help each other out. I believe in a hand-up but not hand-out. If I have more I have no problem giving out to someone that needs it, but not to the ones that are just lazy.
Right now http://www.renoplumbingexpert.com is doing ok but when we are doing great we love giving back to our community.
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posted July 2, 2011 at 11:22 pm
I don’t like too much power in too few hands. That’s why I like a grauated tax.
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