What does the word redistribution mean to you and which party has done the most of it over the past 30 years?

The Republicans use the phrase to imply taking money away from someone and giving it to someone else. But that's not what it is at all. The Republicans have moved so far to the right in recent years that moderates and centrists look to them like extremists. Anyone who doesn't toe the far-right line is a -communist-.

Real redistribution of wealth has to do with how the newly created wealth is disposed. For the last 30 years, the top 1% have doubled their wealth and their share of ownership every 10 years or so, while the bottom 95% of us have struggled to stay in the same place. THAT is redistribution of wealth.

We used to see the pursuit of profit as a means to an end, the end being a more or less continuous rise in the standard of living for everyone. Today we see profit as the end in itself, meaning that for profits to go up, labor has to work for less, the 95% of us who work for a living must accept a steady decline in our standard of living so people like Mitt Romney can get richer and richer. Lowering the expectations of working people, that's Romney's idea of SUCCESS. Now -that- is redistribution of wealth.

The Democrats and Republicans have both used it. A progressive tax code is redistribution to a certain extent. Republicans have used it far less than the Democrats. The Great Society is a good example of wealth redistribution which took 30 years to reform. Obama will be taking this to a new level in 2013 with the Sustainable Community Initiative will which change the distribution of state taxation to become regional rather than local (property tax and others) which will funnel this money into urban areas and away from suburbs and rural areas.

In order to achieve this, the states will be denied their federal grant money if they don't comply. Its already in process as a pilot program in Minnesota. His infrastructure won't be roads, bridges, and dams. It will be public transportation and high rise apartments to be ready for the people who must move to the cities because it will be unaffordable to live in rural areas and suburbs. They will become slums and their schools will lack funding. It will wipe out the middle class.

We have also increased spreading the wealth of the nation to developing nations. Both parties comply.

Redistribution, in the broadest sense of the word, is something the government does every day. Your tax dollars are used to pay veterans benefits, grant student loans, provide medical care for people who cannot afford it, provide grants to small businesses, provide tax breaks to other businesses, etc, etc, etc. It's been that way for a hell of a lot longer than 30 years.

Step One -- start two extremely expensive wars

Step Two -- award enormous no-bid contracts to companies owned by your rich friends (like HaleBurton for example)

Step Three -- take out trillions of dollars in loans to pay for those contracts, in the name of the American people

Step Four -- walk away. The American people are now responsible to pay back those trillions in loans.

I definitely call that redistribution in a big way. Trillions of tax dollars into the pockets of the uber wealthy.

(actually I call it THEFT but no one else seems to see it that way)

Redistribution of what? It is vague unless you tell it is used for. I think of redistribution as when the government collects taxes and builds roads and bridges and helps people in need

Redistribution means taking money from those individuals that earn it and giving it to indivduals that did not. Democrats lead that charge.

Now if you take redistribution in a wider sense for all spending then you can blame the whole lot of politicians for legitimate to waste to illegal. You could blame presidents but congress has to be in on it. You can blame Congress but then you have to show the overidden vetos.

Then we can look at the Supreme Court and all their unfunded mandates.

In Obama's case, he "redistributed" over 700 BILLION to fat cat financiers and union thugs from the tax payers. That's what I'm talking about! When the man really cares about people, he doesn't mess around.

In one swoop the Democrats paid off more rich fat cats than all GOP congresses in US History... combined!

There's an Obama achievement that no one talks about... much.

edit: Oh, you mean distribution doesn't count when Democrats, the party of the rich, make their contributors even richer. Like the way Obama-care is going to spike private healthcare insurance prices. I'm long on health insurance companies.

It means that wealth goes through a process from the worker up. It also goes through a process from the government up and down. Pick a party, works both ways.

Gerry Mandering. Changing the electoral district boundaries in order to win elections. Republicans.

CJ -

The cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars was approx $1 Trillion under Bush. NONE of that money was borrowed it was all payed for out of tax revenue.