The 2001 Obama Interview Transcribed
I’m going utterly insane right now. Some articles about this interview say this proves his views on redistribution of wealth while others say it’s a statement about the limits of judicial activism. So, because we like to provide all the context here at Poligazette, I’ve gone ahead and transcribed the entire ~4 minutes of the interview he gave after the jump. Read it all and then make up your own mind. I’ll do the best I can because the video going around is chopped up and carries a heavily partisan agenda.
UPDATE: Appears even my efforts are not the best there could be. Why not try the original recordings straight from the source?
HOST: Good morning, and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM, and we’re joined by Barack Obama, who is Illinois state Senator from the 13th district and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.
JUMP IN TIME
OBAMA: You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples, so that I would now have the right to vote. I would be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay.
But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted.
And one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still stuffer from that.
JUMP IN TIME
HOST: Lets talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago public radio.
KAREN: Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is, with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for the kind of reparative work economically and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place.
HOST: You mean the court?
KAREN: The court, or would it be legislation at this point.
OBAMA: You know, maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but, you know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.
You just look at very rare examples where, during the desegregation era, the court was willing, for example, order changes that cost money to local school districts. And the court was very uncomfortable with it, it was hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues. You know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.
You know, the court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. You know, I think you could…any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts…
AUDIO INTERVIEW CUT OFF MID-SENTENCE?
Take it as you will.
Both,
I mean, does anybody really think he didn’t mean the redistribution of wealth? and what it really means? He’s saying here that I owe income that I worked for to other people – including people not even born yet.
and he’s saying Judicial activism should take place to make it so.
Ultra liberal commentary really
Thanks for transcribing this. To those who wonder what he means, there are plenty of hints out there… you just gotta connect the dots.
Did we forget the “white folk’s greed runs a world in need” comment?
Interested: yes, it is perfectly clear what he says. He talks about the limitations of the court. They did not approve redistributing wealth. He finds that a pity. So, he says, they will have to redistribute it (for now) via other means, meaning laws, president action, etc.
Aside from reinforcing the general theme of wealth redistribution, I think one thing this goes to is Obama’s radical education agenda. When looking into the Bill Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge program, I realized that- although these things unfortunately don’t fit into sound bite form for voters- the real issue with Bill Ayers is how out of step he is with mainstream Americans now, not just what he did 40 years ago. We’ve been told it’s all OK because he’s now embraced by the Chicago powers and he’s lauded as an education expert, but when you look at his writings you see that he has a distinct political agenda of indoctrination for school kids. Some background here…andhere.
I’m not sure how much Obama agrees with that per se, but he does certainly embrace the ‘education debt’ idea promoted by his education advisor, Linda Darling. This is slavery reparations via the school system (when speaking to liberal audiences, Darling and others will bluntly say so, although they tend to use different language when speaking to a general audience.) Obama too, uses much more politically palatable terms like education investment.
Once I learned all of this information, I’ve noticed more and more that education is likely to be one of the key areas where Obama’s liberal agenda is most apparent. And for those of us who have seen the steady decline of our public schools over our lifetimes, as the federal government has become more and more involved and more federal tax money has been thrown at the schools, we definitely reject these solutions to educational inequity.
That’s not to say that I disagree with the goals- there’s no doubt that failing inner city schools need help, and that all citizens need to work together to solve these problems. But the boondoggle of the Dept of Education, and the teachers’ unions, and education ‘experts’ like Darling and Ayers, are not the source of the solutions.
“He’s saying here that I owe income that I worked for to other people – including people not even born yet.”
Practically speaking you have for your entire working career and will continue to no matter who is elected this year, or in 2012, or 2016, and beyond. You will be taxed and that wealth will be redistributed as it has been since 1913. McCain and you may choose to call it something else, but redistribution is redistribution.
Grewgills, can you honestly say that you don’t know that there’s a difference between taxation to fund things like infrastructure, defense, and government administration versus taxation which takes a percentage of earned income from one citizen and transfers it directly to other citizens? I find it hard to believe that you actually think that “all taxation is wealth redistribution.”
As an addendum to my previous comment about Obama’s ultraliberal education policy, I just noticed that Jonah Goldberg is pointing that out as well (in addition to other disturbing themes of Obama).
A legitamite response might be that yes, as a state Senator he held views consistent with his constituency but since then he has changed. Personally, I struggle to see the voter record that backs up a dramatic change but I will ackowledge that point of view
@C Stanley
Like the earned income tax credit put forward by that well known socialist Reagan?
Since at least the 19 teens there have been federal social welfare programs in the US so, yes since there has been a federal income tax in the US the federal government has been in the business of redistributing wealth. The question since then has been not if, but how much.
No rational actor of any stature in American politics today is seriously talking about ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment insurance, public schools, etc that would have to be labeled socialist if one is to label Obama’s proposals socialist. He is not talking about nationalizing the means of production and to claim that he is by trying to label his a socialist is silly at best.
BTW Even infrastructure and military spending takes our money and redistributes it to other people, so yes technically all taxation is redistribution of wealth.
That said, there is a real debate to be had about tax policy and social spending, but harping on he said “redistributionist” or calling one side socialist or the other side fascist is not a productive part of that discussion.
LOL, are you seriously trying to pan down Obama Grewgills? Oh wait, you like to tag in the common – “rational” word to your comments designed to meld the two parties as indistinguishable from each other.
Try it again.
Grewgills- the idea of social welfare programs funded by the federal government certainly isn’t new, you are right about that. But what is new and disturbing is the under the radar approach of calling such subsidies “tax cuts”.
As you can see here, there’s been a healthy debate about EITC as part of our tax policy for the past few decades, and some have raised concerns about the growth of this social spending (which ballooned under Clinton.)
I can appreciate your comment in the last paragraph of #9, that using politically charged rhetoric isn’t helpful- but neither is the use of creative euphemism to hide the actual agenda of increasing social welfare spending.
CS,
“But what is new and disturbing is the under the radar approach of calling such subsidies “tax cuts”.”
I don’t know that that is new either. Didn’t Reagan sell the EITC as a middle class tax cut?
The rationale for calling things such as the EITC a tax cut would be that income tax is not the only federal tax and that they constitute a refund of other federal taxes. That probably isn’t all that convincing to you (or honestly to me), but that is the language of politics.
“As you can see here, there’s been a healthy debate about EITC as part of our tax policy for the past few decades, and some have raised concerns about the growth of this social spending”
There certainly has and it both should and will continue.
“I can appreciate your comment in the last paragraph of #9, that using politically charged rhetoric isn’t helpful-”
Thanks
“but neither is the use of creative euphemism to hide the actual agenda…”
This works for all agendas and is an unfortunate part of sound bite debates. Most people don’t have or won’t devote the time to participate in reasoned debate or to even read or listen to full explanations of policy proposals. This requires politicians to debate with sound bites if they want to win.
Interested,
“…your comments designed to meld the two parties as indistinguishable from each other.”
No there are definite differences in both style and substance between the two parties, but those differences are much smaller than many on either side care to admit. The differences between R and D are noticeably less than between either R or D and almost any other national government and are less than the differences between many of the major parties in other developed nations. To give an example Michael would be quite familiar with the differences between the VVD and Groen Links are far greater than between American Republicans and Democrats.
Didn’t Reagan sell the EITC as a middle class tax cut?
No, not as far as I know. The EITC was initiated by Dem Russell Long in the 70s, and Reagan attempted to roll it back but eventually caved in to the Dem Congress and increased it. Ditto for GB 41, as I recall…and then Clinton expanded it (without GOP support.)
I could be wrong about some of the details, but I definitely don’t think you’re accurate to portray EITC as something that’s had great support from the GOP. Some conservatives I think have felt that it was at least a better approach than welfare because it goes to those who are working instead of making payments to the chronically unemployed, but many people have raised serious concern about the extent of it and the encouragement of single parenthood (basically putting the marriage penalty on steroids.)
And lo and behold, the percentage of households that qualify for the EITC has rapidly risen, so that now we have 40% of wage earning adults getting a net positive payment from the federal govt (some of them even getting more than 100% of their FICA payments back). Funny how when tax policy and social programs reward certain behaviors (single parenthood) you get more of those behaviors, huh?
Oh, and GG, my point about the rhetoric is that you seem willing to criticize one type of distortion (exaggerating by calling this redistribution full blown ’socialism’) but you are fine with distortions of a different type (calling a tax credit a tax cut.) Doesn’t seem logically consistent, since both tactics tend to make it impossible to clearly assess and debate policy.
“I definitely don’t think you’re accurate to portray EITC as something that’s had great support from the GOP.”
Support has been largely bipartisan but Republican support has generally been more tepid than Democratic support. It was initiated under Ford, Reagan signed in a bump, GHW Bush another, Clinton another, and GW Bush another. That would make 4 R presidents (one with R legislature) and 1 D president creating or increasing the EITC. I would say that qualifies it as one of the more bipartisan policies, certainly one of the most bipartisan tax policies, in recent history. My memory is that all of the presidents that signed on to increases at least spun it as something they supported doing to help the poor.
“now we have 40% of wage earning adults getting a net positive payment from the federal govt (some of them even getting more than 100% of their FICA payments back).”
Only the parenthetically mentioned people are getting a net positive payment from the Feds and that is a rather small and very poor component of the population. I suppose we disagree on the wisdom of this policy.
Re: increasing single parent households I very much doubt the EITC has any measurable effect. On the other hand welfare rules intended to protect children of single parents have likely had a role in increasing single parent families among the poor. This may have consequently made the situation they intended to help worse.
“…you seem willing to criticize one type of distortion (exaggerating by calling this redistribution full blown ’socialism’) but you are fine with distortions of a different type (calling a tax credit a tax cut.)”
It is a matter of degrees. I am strongly opposed to using politically charged rhetoric to create a caustic atmosphere and divide Americans. I am annoyed by euphemisms that create a distorted image of policies like tax cuts that may actually end up being some tax cuts and some tax rebates or things like the Healthy Forests Initiative or Clear Skies Act. The political landscape would be better without either, but I find the former much more troubling.
Only the parenthetically mentioned people are getting a net positive payment from the Feds and that is a rather small and very poor component of the population.
But FICA payments weren’t meant to be progressive because they’re supposed to represent payments into the system by current workers in order to support drafts on the money from the retirees (speaking about SS here specifically.) Even FDR couldn’t have sold this as a welfare program and instead it was meant for everyone who worked to pay in as a secure retirement fund. This just illustrates how these things morph over time, because now there’s an assumption that there should be a progressive structure to this just like income taxes. And my complaint is that a lot of the reason for these slippery slopes is that the euphemisms are used so much that the initial rationale for the program is changed over time- an idea is initially sold to the public as a minimalist one but once it takes hold it can only grow, not be curtailed.
So we’ll have to agree to disagree about whether overstating an opponents plan to make it seem more scary, or downplaying your own plan to make it sound more acceptable, are unequal problems because I think both sides should be called to more honest rhetoric so that the voters better understand the underpinnings of the policies.
@Grewgills
lol, as you say Grewgills – all a matter of degrees is it not? I can take your views and with simple degrees match you up to the greatest figures in our time – or the most horrific person produced by mankind.
to the person who see’s through the BS – the differences are easy to spot.
“So we’ll have to agree to disagree”
That is where I thought we would end up, but a couple of final points to finish up, then you can have the last word if you want it.
Re: Social Security
It stopped being a pension plan and became a social welfare program pretty much as soon as it was implemented. I recognize that and don’t have a problem with it. Most Americans don’t much think about which it is, they just want it to stay. Accurately calling social welfare might change some peoples minds (or at least have them change there answer on a phone poll), but I don’t think it would change many.
“…disagree about whether overstating an opponents plan to make it seem more scary…”
That is not the distinction I was trying to draw. I will try again. I view overstating opponents plans and understating own plans or vice versa the same.* What I consider on a different and worse level is language specifically designed to make the political atmosphere more caustic and to divide people on a deeper level than simple policy differences. Mislabeling political opponents socialists or racists or fascists or anti-American or any of the other loaded words that get tossed around seemingly every election cycle. Both sides do it and both sides should stop. Unfortunately if one stops and the other does not they lose.
* To be honest, I probably get more exercised about it when it supports policies I don’t like as it is 2 things I don’t like as opposed to just 1 (human nature and all).
“all a matter of degrees is it not? I can take your views and with simple degrees match you up to the greatest figures in our time – or the most horrific person produced by mankind.”
So all is black and white and there are no shades of grey in between? No evil or good is greater than any other evil or good?
Of course there are degrees. Some things are worse/better than others.