We're all socialists now

Interesting exchange on Hannity & Colmes last night. And by "interesting", I mean insipid. Evidently, when the Joe the Plumber was Joe the Child, his parents went on welfare a couple of times. And you know what that makes him? A hypocrite for opposing redistribution of wealth! At least that's what a bunch of lefty bloggers are saying.

Although this line of attack is unfair for several reasons, let's just focus on the main one. It's the notion that if the government takes one penny of tax money and gives it to the most destitute person in America, that's wealth redistribution; and anyone who calls himself a free-market capitalist must oppose that use of taxpayer funds or accept the label of "hypocrite." Sorry, but real life is a tad more complicated than that.

I don't know anyone who thinks there shouldn't be any taxpayer-subsidized social safety net for the truly needy. Similarly, I doubt anyone is so much of a free-market capitalist that they oppose any government regulation of business. It's always a question of limiting the role of government to that which is necessary, efficient, and avoids undesired consequences.

I would describe the "conservative" position on welfare as follows: (a) it should exist; (b) it should only be available to the truly needy; (c) it should be administered in a way that avoids fraud and waste; and (d) it should be designed so as to not encourage or permit able-bodied people to use it as an alternative to work. I'm not sure about Joe the Child, but I'm confident Joe the Plumber would agree with all of that.

Now let's talk about what Barack Obama's socialist adherents believe. They want to have the government take a significant chunk of the income of high earners and give it to people in the middle and lower classes in order to make incomes less disparate across the board. Obama himself has sought to justify increasing the capital gains tax rate, a policy he acknowledges tends to reduce overall tax revenues, on grounds of "fairness."

It's one thing to tax people in order to pay for necessary government services and operations. It's quite another to tax people simply to make them less wealthy in relation to others. Unfortunately, in the drive to label yet another political opponent a "hypocrite," the left would have us all ignore that distinction.