Tucker Bounds: When Palin Shares The Wealth, It Isn’t Socialism — It’s ‘Unique’

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 05:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3ZnLpe0cMM   Posted on YouTube: October 29, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 30, 2008 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 979

 
Via ThinkProgress: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/29/tucker-bounds-socialist/

The McCain campaign has spent the last weeks of the campaign repeatedly accusing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) of being an advocate of “socialism.” But the New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch revealed this week that Palin said earlier this year that her state’s oil tax was a mechanism “so we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

Today, MSNBC’s David Schuster asked McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds whether Palin’s “share the wealth” plan had socialist undertones. Bounds denied the allegation, claiming Alaska’s sharing of natural resources is “unique” and not at all socialist:

BOUNDS: No, in Alaska its a unique state because all the residents there have a unique share of the natural resources, that the oil companies come in and use, so therefore they share the revenues of the resources. … Its absurd to equate sharing the oil resources that all of these Alaskans have an ownership stake in, and trying to negotiate a deal with the oil companies that use those resources that —

Bounds is correct in that Alaska is “unique” in having such a vigorous wealth redistribution system. The state offers collective ownership of natural resources, which in turn generates revenue for the state. Using the Permanent Fund, the government distributes the natural resource rents to the general public.

Furthermore, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES) programs helps redistribute windfall oil profits, bringing in so much money that the state needs no income or sales tax. This year ACES will provide every Alaskan with a check for an estimated $1,200. Palin boasts about giving oil money “back to the people.”

It’s unclear, however, how a state with such a strong tradition of progressive taxation that benefits “all” Alaskans — as Bounds himself stated — isn’t in any way “socialist.”

[EnviroBat]

1. Oh Tucker, you smarmy, dickless nazi.

Please walk out in front of a bus...

[Blue_In_AK]

2. This is almost correct

except the part about the dividends coming from resource rents. Actually the Permanent Fund dividends come from a portion of the interest on the investments that have been made with the oil royalties over the past almost 30 years.

Alaskans collectively do own the mineral rights here pursuant to our state Constitution, specifically Article VIII regarding natural resources. Our Constitution was ratified in 1956 at the height of the Cold War, but apparently nobody was worried about creeping socialism at the time. http://ltgov.state.ak.us/constitution.php?section=8

For more on the Alaska Permanent Fund and the dividend program, go here.

http://www.apfc.org/home/Content/home/index.cfm

https://www.pfd.state.ak.us/

I should also point out that the size of our dividends depends on the stock market, and we DO pay federal taxes on them, so while it seems like a family of four getting $8,000 or whatever in dividends is a good thing, a significant portion of that goes back to the federal government.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

3. State Socialist

Is this state socialism, as opposed to federal socialism, a plank in the platform of the AIP? It does sound probable. Parah Salin wants to keep it at home and not spread the wealth nationally.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I don't know anything about socialism

I just know that's our Constitution:

Adopted by the Constitutional Convention February 5, 1956
Ratified by the People of Alaska April 24, 1956
Became Operative with the Formal Proclamation of Statehood January 3, 1959

If anybody at the federal level had a problem with our state constitution, apparently they didn't say anything about it when they made us a state.

[jhrobbins]

8. So, if I move to Alaska, I get a part of this?

[Vroomfondel]

10. Yes, but there is a qualifying period

You must live here for two years in order to qualify.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. Yes.

All you have to do is be here for a full calendar year before applying for a dividend. Say, for instance, you moved up here now, you would have to wait until March 2010 to apply for the 2009 dividend. Dividend amounts are based on the stock market performance of the fund averaged over five years, so with the recent stock market troubles, we may not get as big a check over the next few years, but it should average out. Our dividends have ranged from $300+ dollars in 1981, I believe, up to this year's which was $2,069.

Be warned, though, that our cost of living is quite high, especially out away from Anchorage. Food prices will give you sticker shock, and our gasoline is still about $3.40 a gallon even here in town. It was as high was $9 a gallon in some of the rural communities off the road system. Winters are cold and dark and summer, while beautiful, is short.

But there's not another place I myself would rather live -- even if we didn't get free money. I moved here in 1975 back when we paid state income taxes and before the oil even started flowing, and I knew then I'd never leave.

So if you're up for it, you're certainly welcome.

[zbdent]

4. I wonder how much kickback she got from the guy who owned the property

that Wasilla had to pay because they didn't bother to see who owned the land the hockey rink got built on ...

[damonm]

5. Of course! It's one of the things that are only bad when DEMOCRATS do them

like Perjury, outspending your opponent, declining public funding, lying to the public... shall I go on?
Just add socialism to the list.

[barack the house]

7. He talks of what we should understand. All we need to know is their party broke everything so they>

have to go how the democracy system of hire and fire works.

[WarbirdForObama]

9. Tucker Bounds is such a whiney, pathetic, sniveling

asswipe.

One benefit of the end of this election, this sniveling little butt monkey will regain his position in obscurity.

[elbram]

11. He said "This isn't a John McCain fact..."

Is Tucker Bounds admitting there is a difference between real facts and John McCain's facts? funny...