You may remember the way in which Barack Obama was harshly attacked merely for suggesting that it isn’t a good thing for wealth in America to be concentrated in the hands of a very few people. Obama was accused of advocating the redistribution of wealth.

Now the United States Senate is considering yet another round of “stimulus” – legislation that moves huge amounts of money in the hopes of stopping the crisis in unemployment and home foreclosures. Some are again accusing President Obama of promoting the redistribution of wealth through this legislation.

That notion was countered in a speech by U.S. Representatives James Moran of Virginia back in January, who, although speaking about the House version of the legislation, addressed themes that continue to be in contention.

Moran’s central point: The redistribution of wealth has already taken place, through irresponsible tax cuts for the extremely wealthy instituted under George W. Bush.

” As we consider the stimulus bill today, it’s important to reflect on how we got into this financial morass. After all, over the last 8 years of the Bush administration, we saw the highest corporate profit and the deepest tax cuts in American history. So what’s the problem? Well, 96 percent of the income growth over those 8 years went to the top 10 percent, only the wealthiest Americans.

They were the ones that benefited from the tax cuts. They benefited from the corporate deregulation. Forty-six percent of the profit went to financial services firms. So the problem is that only 4 percent of the income growth during the Bush years went to the 90 percent of middle-class Americans and those struggling to get into the middle class.

But what did they do to cope with this static income? Well, they did what the President told them to do. After 9/11 he said go shop in the mall, and that’s what they did by borrowing. The increase in consumer spending was exactly equal to the amount of money borrowed from inflated home equity values.

That’s what they did, and now we have the bust in real estate values and almost 40 percent of Americans are technically insolvent. That’s why this bill starts to turn around that maldistribution of this Nation’s wealth and income. That’s why it should be supported today. “