“If we’re fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports, the benefits cannot just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that opening markets will lift their standard of living as well as your bottom line,” President Obama told the Chamber of Commerce on Monday morning.
Reaction from Jim “Gateway” Hoft — “His answer to everything… Socialism.” Apparently anything that doesn’t support plutocracy is socialism. Hoft’s “insight” was accompanied by that obnoxious “Obama as the Joker” image. I hadn’t realized the Joker was a socialist.
Update: Here’s another one, from Weasel Zippers —
Marxist-in-Chief: Corporate Profits “Have To Be Shared By American Workersâ€â€¦ What’s he really saying: I intend to force evil capitalists to redistribute their income in the name of class warfare.
Sometimes they’re too predictable. On the other hand, Little Lulu’s post about the speech is an incoherent rant about how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is in cahoots with Big Labor to promote amnesty for illegal immigrants. She also accuses the Chamber of “playing footsie” with the ALF-CIO to support increased government infrastructure spending.
Oooo, evil government infrastructure spending! And yes, the Chamber and the AFL-CIO are in favor of it, because government infrastructure spending is good for business and labor. How dare they actually advocate in favor of whatever is good for their members!
Another Update: Some guy asks, “How is this not socialism?”
So·cial·ism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
On the other hand, the President’s speech was solidly pro-capitalist:
America’s success didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen by accident. It happened because [of] the freedom that has allowed good ideas to flourish, that has allowed capitalism to thrive; it happened because of the conviction that in this country hard work should be rewarded and that opportunity should be there for anybody who’s willing to reach for it. …
… We have to renew people’s faith in the promise of this country –- that this is a place where you can make it if you try. And we have to do this together: business and government; workers and CEOs; Democrats and Republicans.
We know what it will take for America to win the future. We need to out-innovate, we need to out-educate, we need to out-build our competitors. We need an economy that’s based not on what we consume and borrow from other nations, but what we make and what we sell around the world. We need to make America the best place on Earth to do business.
It was a capitalism pep talk, in other words. Then he talked about the stuff government does for business, such as maintain infrastructures (is infrastructure socialism?):
As a government, we will help lay the foundation for you to grow and innovate and succeed. We will upgrade our transportation and communication networks so you can move goods and information more quickly and more cheaply. We’ll invest in education so that you can hire the most skilled, talented workers in the world. And we’ll work to knock down barriers that make it harder for you to compete, from the tax code to the regulatory system.
Then he tells businesses —
But as we work with you to make America a better place to do business, I’m hoping that all of you are thinking what you can do for America. Ask yourselves what you can do to hire more American workers, what you can do to support the American economy and invest in this nation. That’s what I want to talk about today –- the responsibilities we all have — the mutual responsibilities we have — to secure the future that we all share.
As Steve M. points out, Obama is “asking for the economy to work the way right-wingers say it should.”
Right-wingers say that showering wealth on the rich in the form of tax cuts inevitably helps the rest of us. They say they want the rest of us to be helped, which is why they want the tax rates of the wealthy to be reduced. So, see, right-wingers want corporate profits to be “shared” by American workers. Right-wingers want to “spread the wealth around.”
Or, as a former Republican president once said, “We ought to make the pie higher.”
It is beyond reason why anyone would object to what the President said, but that’s wingnuts for you.