The socialism of John McCain

Tom Waseleski

Short on cash and out of ideas, John McCain is going around the country trying to scare voters into believing that Barack Obama is .... a Muslim? a terrorist? No, worse than that -- a socialist. He's faulting Obama for allegedly wanting to transfer wealth and income from hard-working Americans to some unnamed, phantom, you-fill-in-the-blank recipients. In reality, given McCain's longer tenure in the Senate, he has been a "socialist" far longer than Obama.

What do you call taking taxpayer money and spending them on veterans' benefits? An income transfer. Where do the Social Security taxes I pay go? Not to me, but to retired Americans -- another income transfer. Most workers haven't seen a dollar in Medicare benefits, but we all help to pay for the program and hope that it's there when we need its health coverage. That's taking money from one group and sending it to another. The fact that John McCain has never sought to eliminate these wealth transfers during his decades in Washington shows him to be a bigger "socialist" than Barack Obama.

All mature Americans who want a fair and civil society can thank McCain and the rest of Congress for that. But he's not about to sacrifice a political catch phrase for the truth. It's like McCain's bumble-speak yesterday at Robert Morris University. He made a veiled reference to John Murtha's remark about racism in Western Pennsylvania, then botched his punch line by misstating: "I couldn't agree with him more."  Sure, Barack Obama believes in income transfers and John McCain couldn't agree more.