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Dem. Sen. Claims U.S. Doesn’t Have a Spending Problem, It Has a ‘Misallocation of Wealth’ Problem

Feb. 15, 2013 10:22am Becket Adams

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) on Thursday explained something rather extraordinary: The U.S. doesn’t have a spending problem, it has a “misallocation of wealth” problem.

“First of all, I want to disagree with those who say we have a spending problem. Everyone keeps saying we have a spending problem,” he said during a discussion on the Budget Control Act of 2011 (which includes the across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration”) .

“And when they talk about that, it’s like there’s an assumption that somehow we as a nation are broke,” he added.

Sen. Harkin, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, continued:

Well look at it this way, we’re the richest nation in the history of the world. We are now the richest nation in the world.

We have the highest per capita income of any major nation. That kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? If we’re so rich, why are we so broke? Is it a spending problem?

No, it’s because we have a misallocation of capital, a misallocation of wealth.

And by “misallocation,” the senator is, of course, alluding to the so-called “one percent.”

“All of this wealth that’s been built up by hard-working Americans has been accumulated into fewer and fewer and fewer hands all the time,” Harkin said.

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Comments (183)

Bonnieblue2A
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:55pm
In 2004 Sen. Harkin and his wife had an estimated total wealth of approx. $2.6 million. By 2010 their estimated wealth had increased to $16.6 Million. This tranlates to over a 525% increase in personal wealth in the time he has been a public servant.

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-assets/member/thomas-harkin/

I wonder if Sen. Harkin thinks the personal wealth of he and his wife is “misallocated weath”?

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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on February 16, 2013 at 12:14am
  It’s only misallocated wealth if that person is a wealthy conservative.
  
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GuruMeditation
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:55pm
Hahahahaha

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Stone Cold Truth
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:30pm
Straight up marxism. It looks like the cold war is back on but within our own government. We must defeat marxism every time it rears its ugly head. I think we’ve all sensed this coming for a while now, a disturbance in the force if you will.

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jessieH
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:23pm
With morons like this guy in office, is there any doubt about why we are in this mess?

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- Walkabout
  Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:41pm
  Tom Harkin has mis-allocated wealth.
  
  He is worth $10 million to $22 million dollars.
  
  Report this comment
smalldog
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:20pm
Why does he speak only of income? I don’t see the Pelosi’s, the Bush’s, and Obama’s getting poorer. Their wealth continues to increase. On the other hand, the money that the masses work for and save for their retirements continues to be diluted, stolen, squandered, and wasted. Are the wealthy politicians and other donors giving up their wealth any time soon? I don’t think reallocating wages/earnings even touches on ‘fairness’. Why aren’t they redistributing Pelosi’s wealth? The wealth of obama’s 10%?

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My Two Cents
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:13pm
Iowa should add a hammer and sickle to their State flag.

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DebateMe
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:04pm
We don’t have a spending problem. But 1T+ deficits per year and an approaching 17T debt are nothing to worry about.

Even by his own measures (richest nation in the world, highest per capita income of any major nation) the average person can recognize that yes we may be the richest nation right now and we may have the highest per capita income right now but both are on steep decline.

These people are experts at deception. If you were exposed to a lethal dose of radiation but not enough time had yet passed for symptoms to appear, these people would look you straight in the face and tell you you’re just fine.

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IMCHRISTIAN
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:59am
I think the Senator from Iowa has been drinking the same water as Missouri who wants to round up guns. That is neighborly.

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americathebankrupt
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:57am
We have gone from the third most economic free country to the eighteenth.in four years.In 2014 when Obama care is fully impllemented we will be around the fifty mark.If I am going to live in a Banana Republic At Least I amm going to be warm.Costa Rica Here I Come!

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Sumrknght
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:39am
This guy isn’t drinking the Obama Kool-aid – he’s freaking got a swimming pool of it and spends his time SOAKING in it.

Ol’ Harkin should really be careful about what he’s spouting. I’m sure he’s a 1%’er himself. When the hoards of welfare recipients who are suddenly CUT OFF when we run out of money… come pouring out looking to attack the rich – (that’s what happens in communist revolutions Harkin!) I just hope they googled Harkin’s address before Obama turned off the internet.

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hi
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:35am
He needs to pay his fair share and give half of his salary to his assistant.

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Landon410
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:35am
if we are so rish as a country why do we have massive debts? why do we have unfunded liabilities?
if capitilism is so terrible why are our poor rich when compared to the world?

there isn’t one argument that can be made to refute this, China has millions and millions living in terrible poverty, North Korea, the entire country is a port a potty
russia is climbing out of their comunism past but still struggle because of it.
the more liberal europe is so broke it isn’t funny, countries bailing out other countries on a weekly basis…. these plans simply don’t work

remember the americas started with a small communist colony, they lived but 1 winter before they all died of starvation

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leasecommander
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:33am
Sorry sir, but wealth is EARNED not ALLOCATED, a major flaw in the liberal thought process.

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PZWLB
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:29am
Why do the dopes always believe that the money supply would be in better hands if we stole it from the people and gave it to the gov’t? I have a better idea. Let’s enforce the tenth amendment, cut the Federal gov’t in half and live happily ever after.

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Logic77
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:26am
It’s not the governments money, it’s the earners money, let’s get that straight first, then go from there.

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truemedia
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:25am
Let look at the stupidity of what the politican-Harkin said- “If we’re so rich, why are we so broke? Is it a spending problem”?

Why we are the richest and have a GOV spending problem Sen Harkin:

1). spend your money studying the penis sizes of gay men.
2).studies to investigate coked out mother rats and mailed-in toenail clippings
3).study how paying attention improves performance of difficult tasks.
4) Study that smiling more increases ones feeling happy
5). $800,000 for little-used Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the “Airport
for Nobody” Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars.
6).The U.S. government is spending $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
7). U.S. government has spent $175,587 “to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior”.
8) U.S. government spent $200,000 on “a tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.
9).US government has shelled out $3 million to researchers at the University of Ca. Irvine to study Warcraft video game
10). US Gov to spend $500 million to seek to solve the problem of 5-year-old children that “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom.

Let have a relocation of Politicans who support such WASTE like Harkin!

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ErinLindsey
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:18am
Tom Harkin is from Iowa. Do you know what “Iowa” means? It means “Idiots Out Wandering Around”. Poor Tom is lost and wandering.

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- Walkabout
  Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:34am
  Iowa is a purple state. It has good hunting too.
  
  Now it is being ruined by people like Harkin, another JD idiot.
  
  A person with an engineering degree & a JD who becomes a patent lawyer is doing something worthwhile & is very respectable.
  
  A person with any old degree & a JD who becomes a politicians without having done anything else. That doesn’t seem like it turns out well.
  
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RodT82721
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:16am
Well the always obnoxious Harkin isn’t the 1st progressive to assure us that their well run Senate & administration are not over spending. They are just under-taxing.

Yet like speaking the word “liar” is never allowed, neither is the call for more taxes. It must always be couched in progressive speak, like the need for reallocation of your resources, or your hard earned money, it’s never called higher taxes until after a suitable period of class warfare on the targeted wage earners.
Got to rile up the low information folks, to make it work.

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Beachmastermax
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:10am
We need to start calling these peole what they are…COMMUNIST!

The Communist know the power of the language. They try to shame you into not going there because they know the low information voter has the attention span and minimal knowlege to grasp what your saying and turn away from them.

Communist…all together now….Communist.

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huey6367
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:07am
That graph blows me away. It has become exponential and anyone with an ounce of sense can read that graph and deduce we have a spending problem. It slowly crept upwards since the 70s then, around 2000 it started trending significantly upwards until the Obie administration then it shot skyward. Yes, Obama has spend like a drunken college student with daddy’s credit card but this began with Johnson and Nixon. FDR was no hero, either. WW2 saved his ****.

Unless something changes and people will start living within their budgets/depend less on government, we are financially finished as a country.

Is this what Rome looked like before the end?

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moreteaplease
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:05am
Oh okay, now it’s an ” allocation problem “. Liberals just can’t admit when they are screwing things up ( which just about all of the time ). They can’t stand to face the fact the progressive agenda is a sham and a total failure.

What are they going to blame it on next…some video and the author of it.?

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Walkabout
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:05am
Hypocrite Profile – Subject: Democrat Senator Tom Harkin

Net Worth: From $10,276,123 to $22,918,001
Rank: 17th in Senate

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00004207&year=2010

Why Is Tom Harkin So Rich?
http://state29.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-is-tom-harkin-so-rich.html

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Tom_Harkin

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- Bonnieblue2A
  Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:58pm
  Look back further. Go back to 2004 when he first took office. At that point his and his wife’s personal wealth was only estimated to about $2.6 million. To 2010 their wealth increased by 527%.
  
  http://apps.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-assets/member/thomas-harkin/
  
  I’d say Sen. Harkin has a case of misallocated hypocrisy.
  
  Report this comment
kat747
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:04am
Yes, we do have an “misallocation of wealth” problem….as in Congress’ salaries, benefits and ridiculous pensions plus continued benefits,
along with the salaries, benefits and pensions of those “czars” who are totally useles unless they are selling guns to the cartel in Mexico,
along with the salaries of the current administration who hired dozens of “assistants” for whatever reasons,
along with the golf games, vacations and billions of dollars in clothes for the first family,
along with the waste of money this country is sending to countries who hate the USA.
That is what the problem is…..misallocation of wealth……taking money away from the people who
EARN IT.

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- pap pap
  Posted on February 15, 2013 at 12:30pm
  Well stated Kat
  
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The Big Mick
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:04am
No, we have a misallocation of Breath problem.
The ONLY Solution is that All Collectivist Statist Redistributionists have to be stopped from breathing.
Like Flesh Eating Zombies THEY give you ONLY 3 Choices for Endgame. Burn em, Blow em away, or BE EATEN by them. THEY’VE been chompin away for over a Century, since Teddy R and Wilson.
Tain’t much left of The Constitutional Republic and YOUR God Endowed Unalienable Individual Liberties.
Somebody wake me when the gigantic “Red Dawn” “Hun Circle” forms just outside the Beltloop and begins to slay Every Living Creature inside with Fire and Sword.
THAT allocation I’ll buy into.

And will SOMEBODY please read Walter Williams’ April 7, 2010 Column “Parting Company.”

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pap pap
Posted on February 15, 2013 at 11:00am
Any wealth that is allocated to democrats is misallocated.

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