Hook thinks Obama isn't liberal

LAT staff writer Janet Hook reports today that John McCain and Sarah Palin are portraying Barack Obama's tax and economic proposals as left-wing and socialistic and argues they're wrong to do so. She writes: " In any case, using tax credits as financial aid is a far cry from socialism, which typically involves government ownership of major industries. Obama's plan is in keeping with the concept of a progressive tax system, taxing wealthier people at higher rates than the less affluent."

As a reporter, Hook is supposed to report the news, not her opinion of news events or campaign claims. Besides, she is wrong. A government-run health care system, which Obama proposes, is socialistic. Confiscating the income of high-bracket taxpayers and doling it out to people who don't pay income taxes is socialistic. Socialism has degrees, the same as capitalism, democracy and the weather. No one is arguing that Obama plans to make the U.S. into a socialistic country like East Germany during the cold war, only that he leans much farther in that direction than is healthy.