McCain and Vets: It’s Complicated

1. Taking the money from oil companies and spreading the wealth to the people. What does that sound like?

   “For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. 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.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.”

   Excerpted from the New Yorker.
   http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg?printable=true

   Also, please note that Amy Silverman is managing editor at PHOENIX New Times. Support state journalism and read her story here:
   http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-10-16/news/john-mccain-s-fame-is-based-on-his-pow-status-but-he-has-abandoned-his-fellow-veterans/

   Also by Amy Silverman
   http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-08-07/news/postmodern-mccain-the-john-mccain-some-arizonans-know-and-loathe/

Comments are closed.