Scary Sentence of the Day...

In a piece by Alex Hern, writing in the New Statesman:

Now, redistribution is already, prima facie, one of the absolute best things a government can do.

The term “redistribution”, here, means “take money from some people, and give it to others”. 

That sentence is not being taken out of context – go read the article if you doubt me.

This is a very baldly stated version of a central tenet of Progressivism (and many other flavors of socialism): that the state should take money from some people, and give that money to others.

It's bad enough to know that a significant fraction of our body politic believes that stealing from the wealthy and handing that money over to the less wealthy is a justifiable – and even good – thing to do.  Note that this “redistribution” really isn't from the rich to the poor, as many Progressives would style it.  Not unless you consider people making $75k a year to be rich, and anyone making less than $40k a year to be poor – because, roughly speaking, that's how our current redistribution system (primarily income taxes and earned income tax credits) is set up.  But to call such as system one of the “absolute best” things that government can do...now that's scary.

Reading things like that causes me to hear those drums again.  Those drums of doom...

Quote of the Day...

From Megan McArdle:

Rioting in Sweden is the sort of phrase that sounds as if it should be oxymoronic, like "Evil in Candyland" or "Violence among Episcopalians". And indeed, the rioting seems rather tame by American or British standards—cars set ablaze, stones hurled at first responders. In the New York of my childhood, not so far from where I grew up, there were neighborhoods that used to call this sort of thing "Saturday night."

Read the whole thing...

It Was So Cold...

There's one problem with this, though...the Republicans aren't any better about this than the damned Democrats!

Means Testing for Social Security and Medicare?

Some time ago I read about one of the methods being considered to reform entitlements (specifically, Social Security and Medicare): “means testing”.  That's fancy economist-lingo for this: don't give Social Security or Medicare benefits to people who have enough money to pay for their own retirement (and their own medical care while retired).

I suspect most people would have a reaction something like this: “Well, that sounds fair, so long as they don't mean me!”  My own reaction was a little different: over the years of my employment (I'm 60, and about to retire) I have had hundreds of thousands of dollars forcibly removed from my paycheck to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes.  I was told by many sources, not least of which was the IRS, that those dollars would help fund my own retirement.  It's likely that if means testing for Social Security and Medicare is enacted, our assets in retirement would exceed the means testing threshold – so I would get none of these benefits at all, nor would my wife.

I have a lot of trouble with the word “fair”.  I'm not really sure what it means, in this context or in many others.  It's a very subjective term.  I have a much more objective complaint: in effect, the U.S. government made a contract with me.  They said that if I paid these two taxes, as I have, then I would be entitled to Social Security and Medicare benefits in my dotage.  These discussions about taking those benefits away sound to me like pseudo-sophisticated arguments for straight-up theft – the bureaucrats would like to take the benefits that I paid for and give them to someone else who didn't pay for them.  Highway robbery.  Classic redistribution of wealth.  Fair?  Who gives a shit?  They're proposing to rob me!

And that's on top of the higher taxes they're about to impose on me...

Peggy Noonan and Mickey Kaus have other thoughts...

I suspect the results would have been much different had they been seeking the support of those with low GPAs – which is, basically, what our politicians are doing with respect to taxes...