In an e-mail to me, my Republican father concluded after the last debate that it all boiled down to whether you wanted to elect a socialist or a conservative.

After finding an AP article about what *actual* socialists think of Obama (which isn't much), I suggested that they continue their fine work by looking into what *actual* fascists think of John McCain.

Either that, or we could stop using inaccurate words to smear our opponent.

After forcing myself to listen to a couple of McCain's rants about how Obama is going to raise taxes despite what Obama's stated policy position is I've come to the conclusion that the McDrama campaign's take is that Obama is lying when he talks about his tax policy. McCain keeps going on and on about how Obama's voted for numerous tax increases, so no matter what Obama is saying now, he will raise taxes for the middle class if he's elected.

I don't have a comment about Sarah Palin, but it's about time everyone took a moment to consider whether we can afford Sen. Obama's tax plan.

Here's a thought: we can't. Yes, Sen. McCain's plan would be worse, in terms of revenue lost at a time when the projected federal deficit is passing the half trillion a year mark. But the earthquake in the financial markets has had a very substantial impact on the amount of income available in the upper brackets to tax. Giving tax breaks to just about everyone but the highest income earners and raising taxes slightly on people making more than $250,000, if it ever came close to being revenue neutral, doesn't any more.

We can't afford to borrow more money to give tax cuts to tens of millions of people, and do a stimulus package to generate employment, and provide liquidity to capital markets, and do all the other things the government is doing now. In a month, after the election is over, this will be conventional wisdom, and a President-elect Obama will be forced to jettison the tax program that is winning him votes now. The program he is running on was designed to enable him to offer a counter to Republican charges that he wanted to raise taxes. It was, and is, a campaign device. It would be a good thing if we all recognized it is nothing more than that -- and in our present circumstances it is not a program it would be responsible to implement.

You are probably overestimating Palin. She may never have looked at a tax return and not know about progressive taxation with increasing marginal rates for high income people.

care to offer up some numbers to your theory. If you want to go the pundit route then the answer is that Obama will keep his tax cuts for the middle class and offer massive government spending because the U.S. can afford it. The government has to offer massive spending and bank on it's long term future as the economic engine of the world. Obama going back on his tax plan would be political suicide and stupid because the revenue generated probably isn't as big a difference maker as what cutting all the neocon programs that Bush and McCain are running right now add up to.

The irony of it all is that McCain's messengers on this are tax cheats. Joe and Palin. What a bunch of assholes.

Ms. Phail'in,

As you continue to spread rumors and call names like a 5 year old, please remind us..., Aren't you the one who stated that you didn't like 'labels' and so would not accept the question when you were recently asked if you were a 'feminist'? So why do you keep trying to label others, and also various parts of the country as 'real/fake', 'patriotic/unpatriotic' and 'pro/anti-American'? And YOU are in fact taking from the rich oil companies and 'spreading the wealth around' to Alaskan 'welfare' recipients who do NOTHING for that money except exist on a plot of earth that we call Alaska. So, you are a consummate hypocrite to the Nth degree. I hope you accept that 'label', as it is truth-based, unlike the swill that you spew daily. You bet'cha! ;)

Does anyone ever point out that the tax on capital gains is free of the employment taxes: FICA and FUTA?

Anyone making under about $87k pays FICA tax and their employer pays a similar amount. Total, this is about a 15% tax. If you make $50k, FICA takes about $3750 from you and the same from your employer. After this tax you get $46,250 and your employer pays $53,750. If you consider your effective salary to be the $46,250 number, then what your employer pays would represent a 16.2% increase in your wages. This is the actual cost of your job to your employer, this is the real cost.

So the minimum capital gains tax rate of 15% is less than the FICA tax on "earned income"! In other words there is no real tax on capital gains, but just an amount which almost equals the minimum tax on employment.

The big lie here is that someone who makes one million dollars a year actually does 50 times the work of someone who makes $20,000 per year.

Even this measure is generous to the million dollar earner. Someone who makes $20k very likely spends lots of time trying to minimize costs and ends up with zero savings at the end of the year. Someone making a cool million can just stop spending for a week and save almost $20k.

Palin is starting to sound like a Libertarian.

Which is probably pissing off the Libertarians.

"Look: socialism is a word that has a meaning. It means public control of the means of production."

No, that's communism, or at least until very recently. Americans still associate "socialism" with communism because the word was embedded in the name of the U.S.S.R. But true socialism is Democratic Socialism, which has been a foundation of post-war western Europe. The socialist governments of Brandt, Mitterand and Wilson committed their countries to capitalism, as does the Spanish Socialist Workers Party that now governs Spain (and was recently re-elected).

Please don't forget that under true socialist governments, the means of production remain in private hands; during Sweden's admirable economic miracle under successive post-war socialist governments, 97 percent of production remained in private hands. It was the communists that held on to public control, and freely called themselves socialists.

grinning cat: The irony of it all is that McCain's messengers on this are tax cheats. Joe and Palin. What a bunch of assholes.

mccain too...

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years - Newsweek 6/30/08

I would really like to know what Sarah Palin thinks is an appropriate use of the government's power to tax.

An appropriate use is to tax oil company profits and distribute it to every citizen of Alaska. Anything else is "socialism." But really your confusion is coming from putting "Sarah Palin" and "thinks" in the same sentence. Palin may have delivered that speech, but she didn't come up with it. She isn't capable.

LeRoy,

Uh, no. Go buy yourself a dictionary and look up those words.

Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Communism: a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.

As your post demonstrates, people misuse these words for their own purposes. But by definition there is no such thing as a "communist government." And there are no "socialist" governments in western Europe, since the means of production are still in private hands.

Sarah Palin and her acolytes are using the word "socialist" as an epithet, not in the sense educated adults would use it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but by the Palin usage, Adam Smith ("Wealth of Nations") was a "socialist":

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

I don't know, Joel.

Yes, I think you're seeing through LeRoy's confusion, but I wouldn't reserve the vocabulary for the ivory tower.

one can reach a lot of understanding by applying the terms socialism and communism to actual practices.

for example, although it doesn't get you all the way, one can sort out the nations of the world by distinguishing between governmental and economic practices.

the Cubans, for example, have to a great degree socialized there economic practices in a manner consistent with hilzoy's definition.

And for their governance, in which nothing gets past the Communist Party without their OK, the government is effectively practicing Communism, and therefore, whatever Lukas thought Communism meant it actually refers a political order.

(and don't get me wrong: I think his articulation of Marx is a thing of beauty. but it's only relevant to the extent that it informs practice. And the sad fact is that it doesn't and never has.)

But with a distinction between the economy and governance, whereby 'communism' refers to the political order and 'socialism' to the ecoonomic, the world sorts out rather nicely.

Communism contrasts with Democracy, while Socialism contrasts with Capitalism.

just IMHO.

redwood,

You, like Sarah Palin and John McCain, have the freedom to use words anyway you want. But if you hope to distinguish yourself from bombastic blowhards like Palin and McCain, it is a good idea to stick to the dictionary defintions of those words. Otherwise, you end up looking as self-serving as they do.

Are socialism and communism whatever socialists and communists say they are? Or what Sarah Palin, John McCain and Joe the plumber say they are? Who gets to decide, redwood, when we become unmoored from any standard defintions?

Dictinaries still have a place in the 21st century. Lets take back our language!

"Dictionaries"

Sheesh!

I think most of you are missing the point. This isn't an invitation for intellectual conversation by Gov. Palin. In my opinion, she's setting the stage for her second appearance in 2012. She wants to be the heir-apparent. She attracks the scariest part of the conservatives. Her reaction in the beginning to applause at rallies was amazement and she would mouth "wow". This woman isn't going to settle for little old Alaska anymore. There is going to be a tremendous power struggle in the republican party. Gov. Palin is going to lead the old "Bushies" who put their God and values as supreme. The other side will be the intellectuals. The intellectuals better find a candidate with as much people savvy as Gov. Palin or we as a country are in trouble.

Sarah Palin doesn't "think" anything. She lives in a bubble in which people like Kristol feed her pre-packaged talking points -- which are different from arguments -- connected to broad emotional themes like freedom. To actually think about these issues, she'd have to be exposed to arguments about them, she'd have to learn to formulate arguments herself, she'd have to think hard about hard cases and trade-offs.

That would require curiousity. And while Palin strikes me as by no means a dummy, she is proudly ignorant. I doubt, for example, that one could actually have a coherent discussion with her about progressive taxation, or that she'd be interested in looking into the historical evidence of its effects on economic growth, or of learning about different ways to assess the fairness of tax systems, etc., etc.

Asking what she truly thinks about an issue like this is like asking what the piece of paper she's reading from thinks about it.

"she's setting the stage for her second appearance in 2012."

We've had presidents who were previously on a successful ticket as vice president (e.g., LBJ, Nixon, Bush I) and we've had unsuccessful presidential candidates where were previously on a successful ticket as vice president (Humphrey, Gore, Dole). When was the last time we elected a president who was previously on an unsuccessful ticket as vice president?

Sarah Palin has done nothing to make me believe she is interested in (or capable of) reading a book as weighty as The Fountainhead.

After all, it doesn't have any pictures.

I agree with Larry in that she's using talking points, not reason. And I also agree with Jacklyn that she's laying her 2012 foundation right now, hoping that merely by sheer name recognition, she's projecting herself into a force for 2012. (How much did a similar situation four years earlier do for John Edwards?) This anti-tax stance is her way of reaching beyond the GOP fundie base, positioning herself as Grover Norquist in pantyhose.

When was the last time we elected a president who was previously on an unsuccessful ticket as vice president?

Posted by: Joel on October 26, 2008 at 11:04 AM

The most recent I can think of was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who I believe was James Cox's running mate in 1920. (Keep in mind the FDR of 1920 had a considerably different image than his '32 counterpart -- had he not been named Roosevelt, a year after popular ex-president Theodore Roosevelt's death, perhaps he wouldn't have received the nod.)

In this context the word "socialism" doesn't mean anything (especially not to Palin, who doubtless could not give even a 10th grade definition of the concept) . It's a symbol intended to inculcate fear, like "Darwin". "Ayers", "Willie Horton".

Given that the population cohort for which this symbol works (mine actually) is being supplanted by a younger one (GenX, and GenY...can Z be far behind?) it is less and less likely to have any broad effect. The question is: how much effect appeal does it still have? That will be to some extent answered by this election, but since there is a real and legitimate fear stalking the land, (the economic crisis)it's likely that even those who cling bitterly to the old stereotypes will have that attachment shaken.

That is why, IMHO, the remainder who are clinging for dear life (as they perceive it) are becoming more shrill, more obscene, more desperate. As their numbers shrink (sample the comments section at WaPO to see the shift) they get louder and project more than an IMAX machine.

Right now it's the best show on earth, although as a longtime Red-Sox fan, I can't shake a certain insecurity no matter what the polls say.

Thanks, Vincent.

So who believes Palin is the FDR of 2012?

socialism is a word that has a meaning. It means public control of the means of production. No. Socialism is about government ownership. The USA has a socialized post office, socialized health care for the aged, and now some socialized banks. That is socialism. Regulating postal delivery, banks or health care is not socialism.

Reading Palin's interpretation of Socialism is an indication that if she ever took an Economics class, she did not pass. Zathras seeks to also be in that category. Indeed many commentators appear to have trouble understanding the differences between Socialism and Communism. Concerning the U.S. Post Office, our Constitution assigned the task of establishing a post office and postal roads to Congress.

larry birnbaum,

You have laid it out very clearly. The words Palin are using are crafted for her by the McCain campaign, and they are designed not to inform, but to manipulate the base. The base consists largely of right wing authoritarians, so that vocabulary Palin is using fits their beliefs and terminology.

It's not an intellectual argument. There is no effort by Palin to explain government, politics or economics. The only dictionary that matters it whatever twisted dictionary that Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage and O'Reilly would write.

Does FOX issue a style manual? It might contain the definitions of Socialism, Communism and Capitalism as they use it. But probably not, because they are using it in ways that shift rapidly. The meaning of the same word at different times will be different depending on what they want it to cause to happen. That is why the right-wingers are so inconsistent. Academic definitions mean nothing to them. They leave that to their propaganda think tanks. Those think tanks will redefine whatever words they are using to meet the latest political needs.

It's propaganda, pure and simple. It is designed to shift political power. That's all it is. And for that, it is as effective as the number of American voters it can persuade.

I think many Republican voters, even moderates, believe taxation is a form of socialism. I have noticed that attitude even among the Republicans who work for the government or public schools and are paid by taxpayer dollars. Seems like a disconnect to me.

Maybe she is opposed to all taxes, and regards even those taxes required to provide for the national defense as confiscation or theft.

For background, Libertarians like to say that Tarrifs could cover all necessary expenses.

They'd also pretty much restrict national defense to (if you invade we launch one of our 5 nukes at you.

All roads and bridges would have tolls.
There'd be no border patrol.

The Libertarians, unlike Palin, actually understand that no taxes means almost no government services. Conservatives would be apoplectic if they saw how few of their "necessities" could be paid for with what they think are "fair taxes".

Without Chinese loans, the numbers just don't ass up. And loans themselves are a symptom of numbers not adding up. Are we STILL under the delusion that Republicans can manage other people's money well?

What is most annoying about this "socialism" attack is they are misdefining socialism. They are actually using the term "socialism" as shorthand for "democratic socialism" as the term is used in Europe.

Socialism is goverment ownership of the means of production. Pretty dry but it would be an interesting discussion about the proper balance in our "mixed economy" about the respective balance between capitalism (which technically isn't an "ism") and government.

In the US we have wide acceptance of government ownership of significant transportation assets (roads, highways and some rail), delivery of mail but with significant private sector involvement (FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc), hospitals and medical care (VA, city and county operated hospitals) education (but with significant private sector involvement, mainly non-profit). This of course is only a quick review).

The majoriy of Americans probably like the balance about where it is but realize that there will be constant give and take. The problem for Republicans is that in the last few months as the US government has tried to stem the fallout from the finanicial market meltdown, this balance between capitalism and goverment has rapidly shifted.

When the US loan money to Chrylser (only $1.25 (?) billion) it was a long and protracted discussion). We just loaned the US auto industry $25 billion and I wold doubt most Americans are aware this took place.

I would like to see the two parties have a discussion about the roles of the private sector vs the public sector. But I just can't take the Republicans seriously when they are calling Obama and Democrats socialists while at the same time calling on the Federal government to bail out the private sector.

Right now it's the best show on earth, although as a longtime Red-Sox fan, I can't shake a certain insecurity no matter what the polls say.

Posted by: jrosen on October 26, 2008 at 11:25 AM

Haven't '04 and '07 cleared that out for you? Substitute "Phillies" for "Red Sox" (think 1964, Joe Carter and a few other things) and you might have a more persuasive argument.

I personally thought after the blown call on the Moyer-to-Howard grounder in the seventh inning last night (or early this morning!), the Phils were going to collapse like a house of cards, but they won anyway. (Of course, the only year they've ever won it all was 1980, an election year of change. Maybe '08 will ring identical, only leftward.)

almost as laughable as the idea that this line of attack will appeal to anyone outside the Republican Party's lunatic fringe.

It seems to appeal to the independent entrepreneurs who identify with "Joe" Wurzelbacher, the people who run the small business that employ so many Americans, and who would probably be hurt by Obama's specific proposals.

I can't get with the fear of defining terms for ourselves, which Joel, et al express.

the problem with Palin is not that she is not using the dictionary's definition of socialism.

it is that she is not telling us exactly what she means by socialism and, more important, how that meaning connects to any of Barack's proposal, the ladder being hilzoy's point.

it's our job as voters to think critically about her vocabulary.

and the sad fact is that too many Americans don't know how.

but at the end of the day, the relationship between language is arbitrary, and I'll be damned if I'm going to yield my perceptions to Webster and a bunch of privileged elites.

i.e. the relationship between language and meaning is arbitary.

"i.e. the relationship between language and meaning is arbitary."

I don't think Karl Rove could have said it better himself.

"It seems to appeal to the independent entrepreneurs who identify with "Joe" Wurzelbacher, the people who run the small business that employ so many Americans, and who would probably be hurt by Obama's specific proposals."

Uh, no, Marler. "Joe" Wurzelbacher makes $40,000 a year. He would be helped by Obama's specific proposals. As would people who run small business. Are you illiterate or just dishonest?

Smarter trolls, please.

Well, if I've learned one thing from reading this thread, it's that no one agrees on what "socialism" actually means. No wonder the Sarah Palins of this world can get away with what they do.

Actually, "socialism" means political and economic power to the working class. When the main function of the state is to subsidize and protect big business and there's a revolving door of personnel between the corporate boardrooms and political appointees in government agencies, it really doesn't matter how much of the economy the government owns or controls. It's just the capitalists operating through THEIR state to control THEIR economy. It's not socialism; it's state capitalism.

P.S. The Dems and Repugs are equally state capitalist, I think.

The main difference between them is this: The Dems are like a farmer who thinks he can get more work out of his livestock in the long run if he feeds them well and gives them decent living conditions. The Repugs are like a farmer who thinks he'll come out ahead by working them to death and replacing them. Both parties represent different coalitions of organized capital, and both see us as their livestock.

I heartily applaud Hilzoy's reference to "The Fountainhead".

For those who don't know it, Alan Greenspan was weaned at the feet of Ayn Rand. The entire Friedmanite/Reagan/John Wayne mystique that the right leans on all comes from Ayn Rand. Her books are where they got the idea of the "builders" being the only ones who are entitled to the fruits of capitalism.

But in all fairness to her, the right DID twist her message (with her blessing, IMHO). She posited the builders opposite altruists, who she claimed were actually parasitic frauds who lived off the builders by claiming to fight for the masses, while actually lining their own pockets. The People - Joe Main Street - in Rand's books, basically had no standing; there was only the battle between the altruist frauds and the genuine builders.

The right twisted this into the Haves owning the right to claim the great majority of all wealth produced, and simultaneously using the altruistic Liberals as their straw men to be attacked endlessly - to deflect attention from the greedy, endless grabbing by those at the top. "Look, everyone, there is another Liberal elitist leper for you to run from! They are going to give all your money to groups you think you are better than! Shame on them! Somebody has to stop them!"

One thing Rand never understood - and that was conveniently overlooked by the right - was that the managers of "industry" of the time were not builders, but maintainers. CEOs of companies long since established had little need for creators. Managers were all that was needed. In addition, those in the financial area have NEVER been builders, only sellers of currency as a commodity. As such, the bankers' contribution was never as anything more than symbiotic parasites (what Rand accused the altruists of being) - in regulated times mild parasites and in laissez faire times severe parasites.

They intentionally obfuscated, transmutating Rand's label of "heroic builders" applying it to manipulators of stocks and money - the corporate raiders, those in mergers and acquisitions, stock brokerage houses, and all sorts of other manipulators of funds. It was an insane travesty, but one that has served them all well since the 1960s. They turned their brand of parasites into heroes, and the American populace never questioned their right to make such a claim. The image of John Wayne/Gary Cooper types battling to express their creations was stolen and made into an abomination of her originals, Howard Roark and John Galt. Because of Ayn Rand, parasites became our economy's heroes, and the philosophy of "greed is good" was engraved into our reality.

When accountants caught the ears of American industrialists in the 1960s and convinced them that manipulating money and buying up and absorbing other companies was a better way to grow their companies than producing more products more efficiently, the handwriting was on the wall:
The end of America as the engine of production of WEALTH for the world. (MANY at the time would go around offices, mumbling to themselves, "The damned bean counters are going to kill this company." This has been true of so many American companies it makes the mind reel.)

The claims by the usurpers to the crown of "Builders" has been completed in the last 10 years, as they gave over the last of the production and management of the creation of goods to other nations, in the drive toward limitless greed. They claimed the right to not only all the profit produced by their American workers (the real creators/builders), but found that they didn't even have to share with their American workers at all; it was far simpler and FAR more profitable to move the work to 3rd world countries. Their profits soared, as their claims decimated cities and towns all over America. All those near ghost towns across the American prairie and Great Plains, the length of the entire eastern seaboard, and the hollowed out industrial parks of the upper Midwest - all these are the legacy of Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead".

This country of almost limitless wealth and prosperity that welcomed Ayn Ran has been destroyed by her philosophy of selfishness (her own term, for those who don't know). She has brought it to its knees, just as the nation she ran from - the USSR - was destroyed by the greed and power lust at the apex of its own pyramid scheme.

Before Rand arrived, America had it all figured out. We owe her a debt of gratitude for giving the neocons, the oligarchs, the plantation owners, the military-industrial complex, the lobbyists - and all the financial geniuses born out of Friedman's mind and pushed on us by his students and hers. Keynesian mixed economies may have been less than perfect, but they sure did produce a hell of a lot of prosperity for a hell of a lot of people.

Whether and how well ours - and Europe's - can be rebuilt is up to us and our actions in the next few decades.

It bloody hell didn't have to be this way.

Thank you, you witch.

These pukes misquote the phrase about tax cuts for 95% of the "people". when in fact the quote is 95% of "working" people. Just like they keep misquoting Ayers as saying he wished he would have "bombed" more when in fact he said he wished he would have "done" more to stop the Vietnam war.

They twist the words so they can get the meaning they need to lie about the tax plan. Allowing the tax cuts to expire for the wealthy is redistribution alright...redistribution of what these people have unfairly avoided paying so they might create more jobs...which didn't happen and the greedy a-holes got out of paying taxes all together. Why the Palin supporters cheer at such nonsense is a tribute to how confused the McCain campaign has made them. Such low information uninformed voters...what a shame. I believe they are not so much McCain/Palin supporters as they are Obama haters because rather than talk about policies all they can do is mock Obama.

If you said "all republicans are liars and thieves and really just use American voters especially the stupid ones like you all to keep us in power so we can make huge personal profits off your tax dollars supporting legislation for the rich and big corporations yet Obama is pallin' around with terrorist and wants to bring socialism to America, to this god city"...hell they'd start cheering and clapping, remembering only what was mentioned about Obama. Definitely time for a change.

Rick b: "Does FOX issue a style manual? It might contain the definitions of Socialism, Communism and Capitalism as they use it. But probably not, because they are using it in ways that shift rapidly. The meaning of the same word at different times will be different depending on what they want it to cause to happen. That is why the right-wingers are so inconsistent. Academic definitions mean nothing to them. They leave that to their propaganda think tanks. Those think tanks will redefine whatever words they are using to meet the latest political needs.

It's propaganda, pure and simple. It is designed to shift political power. That's all it is. And for that, it is as effective as the number of American voters it can persuade."

All of these terms are HOOKS, developed and tested in the right wing think tanks, to elicit EMOTIONAL responses from their target market.

Who is the target market?

Middle class and poor whites in the southern states (now expanded into the rest of the red states, and as much as possible into the blue states). This all goes back to Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy. LBJ gave the blacks the right to get to the ballot box unhindered and other Civil Rights. LBJ famously said in 1964 as he signed the Civil Rights Act, "We, we've just lost the South for a generation."

Nixon stepped in and sucker punched the country, and we've been dealing with his dirty tricks division ever since. Limbaugh, et al, are just part of that. And their use of terms as hooks to grab people by their emotions will go on as long as they think it works.

And you know what?

Only an utter collapse of the entire shebang can cure the target market of listening to it. What is the "entire shebang"? Well, the loss of Social Security would have been it. Once these idiots had realized that they couldn't manage their SS accounts, and that the stock brokers were getting rich off the money that was being siphoned out of THEIR retirement money - then the stupids would have realize they'd been had. But by then it would have been too late.

We would have had - maybe we still will have - more hobos than the 1930s.

The oligarchs see it in black and white: There is either their form of savage capitalism, or there is communism - with nothing in between. They have to keep painting it that way so that the populace keeps running into their arms for comfort and security.

Limbaugh is paid what he is to facilitate the economic rape of the American population. And the owners of FOX are complicit in this. Everything they do, from dawn to midnight is hooks and repetitions of hooks. They have their formula and they are going to milk it until it stops working.

And then they are going to apply the next formula.

Whatever that might be...

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

John McCain on Sharing the Wealth:

“During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC’s “Hardball,� a young woman asked him (McCain) why her father, a doctor, should be “penalized� by being “in a huge tax bracket.� McCain replied that “wealthy people can afford more� and that “the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do.� The exchange continued:

Young woman: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?. . .
McCain: Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.�

Sarah Palin on Sharing the Wealth:

“A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “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.��

Source: Hertberg; The New Yorker; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27397938/