Obama On “Redistribution”: Nothing New

A 1998 tape where President Obama says he believes in redistribution, does nothing other than underscore how government resources are used to help those in need. What he said was, “The trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution. Because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody’s got a shot.”

Greg Sargent:

In other words, this is not meaningfully different from what Obama has said thousands of times: He favors taxpayer funded government spending to create opportunity, via investment in education and so forth. And just because he used the word “redistribution” in the process, Romney and Republicans are painting it as radical and a “foreign concept.”

…Majorities of Americans support increased education spending and increased investment in infrastructure to create opportunity and jobs. Do they also embrace the “foreign concept” that free enterprise is not the primary driver of growth? Of course not. The two are not mutually exclusive, despite Romney’s effort to create a false choice to the contrary. Romney, meanwhile, has confirmed that only unadulterated economic freedom, and nothing involving government at all, has a role to play in spurring opportunity, at least if he meant what he said today.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.