Say Anything Blog

Obama is smarting from (correct) assertions from the McCain/Palin camp that he’s a wealth-redistributing socialist.  So the Associated Press rides to the rescue with a “fact check” that tries to paint Palin as a hypocrite on this issue because of Alaska’s permanent dividend fund.

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin summon antidemocratic images of a communist state to attack Democrat Barack Obama’s tax plan and his comment about spreading the wealth around. But in her home state, Palin embraces Alaska’s own version of doing just that.

Palin and McCain seized on a comment Obama made to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked about his tax plans.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning $250,000 to pay for cutting taxes for the 95 percent of workers and their families making less than $200,000. “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” he told Wurzelbacher.

McCain said that sounds “a lot like socialism” to many Americans. Palin has derided the Illinois senator as “Barack the Wealth Spreader.”

But in Alaska, Palin is the envy of governors nationwide for the annual checks the state doles out to nearly every resident, representing their share of the revenues from the state’s oil riches. She boosted those checks this year by raising taxes on oil.

First, the permanent dividend fund was set up in Alaska in 1976.  Palin was still in high school.

Second, the permanent dividend fund isn’t wealth redistribution.  It’s a managed investment fund based on royalties paid to the state of Alaska by oil and mineral companies in exchange for access Alaska’s natural resources.  Distributing that royalty money to the citizens of Alaska, as opposed to the politicians spending it like they do in other states and at the federal level, is hardly socialism.

Third, Palin did raise taxes on the oil industry to fund an additional $1,200 one-time payment to Alaskans.  Was that a good thing?  I don’t think that raising taxes in general is a good idea, and I didn’t agree with Palin when she raised the taxes, but again this is hardly socialism.  This isn’t the “take from those who already pay the most in taxes and give to those who pay almost nothing in taxes” nonsense Obama is selling as his tax plan.  It was, basically, an additional royalty or use fee levied on the oil producers to fund a payment to every single Alaskan citizen (including children).

It wasn’t good policy, but it doesn’t make Palin a hypocrite on wealth redistribution either.