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Go Home Proof That Mitt Romney Is A Redistributionist

PLANK SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Proof That Mitt Romney Is A Redistributionist

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

When I wrote last week that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe in using the government to redistribute income—just like every president going back at least as far as Franklin Roosevelt—some readers were incredulous. Romney, after all, is going around saying that Obama believes in economic redistribution while he, Romney, believes in economic growth.

But this weekend’s 60 Minutes interview with Romney (there was also one with Obama) proved Romney to be a redistributionist when he talked about Medicare. Interestingly, he did not begin with his plan to voucherize Medicare. Rather, he began by talking about means-testing the program. “What I do in my Medicare plan for younger people coming along is say this,” Romney said. “We’re going to have higher benefits for low income people and lower benefits for high income people. We’re going to make it more means tested. I think if we do that, we’ll make sure to preserve Medicare into the indefinite future.” 

I don’t disagree with this approach to curbing Medicare expenditures, but then I wouldn’t. I’m a redistributionist. And what Romney describes is a redistributionist scheme. Elsewhere in the interview Romney says, “I want to keep the current progressivity in the code. There should be no tax reduction for high income people.” Now, Romney’s tax plan, if enacted, would actually reduce taxes on high incomes much more than on lower incomes. But let’s set reality aside and take him at his word that he wants the tax code to remain progressive to the same degree, which means that higher-income people continue to pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than lower-income people. That wouldn’t necessarily make for redistributive government if taxpayers then received government benefits in proportion to their contribution. But at least when it comes to Medicare, that’s not what Romney says he wants. He wants to take a disproportionate share from “high income people” and then spend those revenues disproportionately on “low-income people.” Indeed, he wants to skew the distribution more toward low-income people than occurs today, by reducing benefits to high-income people. Ergo, he wants to increase government redistribution beyond what’s already occurring under the crypto-Bolshie administration of President Obama. (And once again, for the record: I’m all for that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama were, too.)

So please, Gov. Romney, let’s hear no more of this crap about how you don’t believe in redistribution. You just got done talking about how you’d increase it.

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12 comments

No. No. Don't give him a map of how to get out of the maze.

- skahn

September 24, 2012 at 12:03pm

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Let's not be coy. What Romney wants to do is end Medicare. How? By means testing it, that is to make it more like Medicaid. And what do we know about Medicaid? We know what one would expect for a program paid for by upper income folks and benefiting low income folks: it sucks.

- rayward

September 24, 2012 at 12:16pm

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Further, those bums should take control of their lives. There's no excuse for being old, sick or poor. Or a child! Children should work, like in Asia. That way when they get sick they can buy insurance vouchers. If they can't buy insurance they deserve what they get.

- Sophia

September 24, 2012 at 12:19pm

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Whenever Romney says anything, it reminds me of an old Donovan tune. "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." Except, by comparison, the lyrics have more substance than Romney.

- Nusholtz

September 24, 2012 at 12:27pm

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Let's not be coy. What Romney wants to do is end Medicare. How? By means testing it, that is to make it more like Medicaid.
Ah, so you don't want to see Medicare treated as if it's a form of social welfare. Here's the thing, though: It is a form of social welfare. It's not like Social Security, where you can legitimately say you've purchased insurance with a retirement income benefit. When Medicare was founded, I don't think anyone was projecting the rate at which healthcare costs would grow. But they have and, as a result, everyone who receives Medicare coverage is imposing a cost on the People. Why shouldn't those who can afford to contribute be asked to do so? It simply seems unfair to me that someone with a high income in retirement gets the same government subsidy for health insurance as the working class.

- kpidcoc

September 24, 2012 at 12:48pm

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Ray hit the nail on the head. KPI, his point is not whether we should do it or not, it's that making it means tested is going to make it open to the same kind of rich vs. the rest demagoguery and attempts at defunding that Medicaid is subjected to today.

- austinous

September 24, 2012 at 1:11pm

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Yea, kpi, ray and austinous are correct. If the wealthy don't get benefits, they won't pay for the program.

- jet

September 24, 2012 at 1:56pm

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Most politicians overlook the fact that today people with higher incomes pay higher premiums for Medicare -- i.e., it is means tested. My own opinion is that neither Social Security nor Medicare should be means tested. To the contrary, they whould be seen as benefits to which all of us, rich or poor or middle income, are entitled, period. We don't charge the rich more to walk in parks or drive on the highway -- they are available to all. Should be the same for SS and Medicare. The main solution to Medicare's problems is to get MD's to stop charcing for work they don't do and to lower the fees to certain specialties where MD's can be paid $700 - $899 an hour, regardless of outcome.

- PeteBeck

September 24, 2012 at 1:58pm

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While I was watching Romney on 60 Minutes, I wasn't sure what he meant by Medicare means testing. Did he mean that the wealthy wouldn't get Medicare at all upon retirement, or would they just pay higher premiums and co-pays? I would support rich retirees getting Medicare coverage automatically, like everyone else. Medical costs today can bankrupt a wealthy person, too. John McCain has been talking about means testing for Social Security for years. He doesn't believe the rich should get it. I agree. It's called Social Security for a reason--it's there to help retirees who need it to live decently. And if a rich retired person were to lose his or her wealth and need Social Security, then it would become available. In the meantime, Social Security and Medicare taxes only apply for about the first $106,000 or so of income. If a wealthy person can take that hit and stay rich, then just consider his or her taxes that go into Social Security and Medicare a charitable contribution. And if the wealthy are ever means-tested out of Social Security, then they should be allowed to deduct the taxes they pay into it.

- magboy47.

September 24, 2012 at 2:21pm

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Wait a second. Even poor retired people pay for Medicare. So excuse me? It comes off the top of Social Security payments, which we, ahem, paid for. PS what's wrong with social welfare? This is a problem? Why?

- Sophia

September 24, 2012 at 3:40pm

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magboy47, I agree with you on principle (means testing) the problem is, as pointed out above, if the rich don't get their bennies they'll resent the poor even more. Note I don't use the term "middle class" because I think there isn't much of a middle class anymore, we're becoming a two-tier economy pdq. Anyway, what we could do is raise the contribution ceiling or even the rate. It's way too low, and maybe the well-to-do could and should pay more. But they have figured out so many ways to game the tax system as it is, they'll figure out a way to pay LESS than poor people or "middle class" people, if possible.

- Sophia

September 24, 2012 at 3:43pm

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The case for "social welfare," this is an article about conditions in Spain - where thanks to austerity, there is now hunger: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/world/europe/hunger-on-the-rise-in-spain.html?pagewanted=all Make sure to look at the slide show. This is what happens when "social welfare" is ignored and the people are slighted.

- Sophia

September 24, 2012 at 6:28pm

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