John Laird Nov. 9: Meet America’s newest bogeyman

Gosh, for awhile there, I was afraid we were running out of monsters, which in America would be a very bad thing. Those darn WMD’s never turned up, the Yankees missed the playoffs, O.J. was convicted, and Sarah Palin flew back to Alaska. The needle on our fear gauge was pushing toward “E.”

Just in time, there’s a new demon, born during the election campaign and nourished last week to a mature wickedness. Our new bogeyman is “spreading the wealth.” Its high priest is the president-elect, or as John McCain says, the “Redistributionist in Chief.” These days, spreading the wealth means confiscating money from hard-working people and giving it to a bunch of lazy, no-count slugs who don’t deserve it. Alas, our only defense, we’re told, is to “Hang onto your wallets!”

Americans, though, are pretty smart people. Most of us can tell a monster from a scarecrow, and we understand two fundamental facts:

* This great nation’s government has been spreading the wealth for almost a century. I wonder why so many of us would fear a 95-year-old beast.

The federal income tax system was formalized in 1913 by the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment — and not Karl Marx — is what spawned our nation’s progressive tax system in which the rich pay higher tax rates. I suspect we require the rich to pay more for three practical reasons: because they can; because the poor cannot; and because America needs the money.

* We spread the wealth more (and better) than just about any other country. Why? Because, despite the current economy, we are immersed in affluence (compared with other countries). And, despite our vast differences in religious beliefs, most of us believe in the Golden Rule.

In Clark County, spreading the wealth is demonstrated in many ways. Take Washington State University Vancouver. That beautiful and growing campus was built mostly by diverting money from elsewhere to here, as will happen in large part when the Interstate 5 Bridge is replaced, and as happens in reverse when millions of our own dollars are spent elsewhere.

When all of this is done by your own political party, it’s called visionary investment, compassionate outreach and needs-based public funding. The recipient always is deserving. A couple of good examples are the GI Bill and Pell grants, which take many billions of our tax dollars and “spread” or “redistribute” them to industrious people who need temporary assistance, people we don’t mind helping and whose future prosperity will add to the tax revenue.

However, when this process is done by the other guy’s political party, it’s called socialism, and if you can paint a hammer and sickle on it, then great! The recipient always is some worthless parasite … welfare queens we called them back before 1996 when we reduced the welfare rolls by 60 percent.

When the other party’s presidential candidate casually mutters “spread the wealth,” let’s just set aside the 16th Amendment and call him a Marxist. It’s strange, but the same people who love spreading $700 billion of our wealth on Wall Street also abhor the idea of providing health care to low-income families.

Often, wealth is spread not by the bogeyman but by the people themselves.

(Attention, Hounds of Whinerville! Stop reading this column now. I know light rail is your No. 1 bogeyman, and the next two paragraphs will just cause you to self-eject from your recliners.)

Last week, it was the voters themselves who decided to spread the wealth on three projects found in three directions from Clark County. Up in King County, voters approved a $17.9 billion measure to expand light rail, commuter train and bus service in and around Seattle. In California, voters OK’d a $10 billion high-speed rail system. In Hawaii, voters approved a $5 billion elevated steel-rail transit system.

This is absolutely awful news for people who loathe the spread-the-wealth monster. In the blink of an election, he has vanished. With these three transit projects, there’s no one to blame but the people themselves. Man, it sure was a lot easier back when we could blame the president-elect.