Midknight Review with the most comprehensive transcript of Obama's 1998 conversation about restructuring government to accommodate the redistribution of wealth.

<<<< As you read the text and listen for yourselves,  keep this in mind:  It is not the redistribution that is worrisome, it is the restructuring of government systems to such an extent that sources can be pooled to a far greater extent than in 1998.  

Editor's notes:  The man has always been a redistributionist big government champion,  who believed,  in 1998,  that “big government” had taken a pounding and needed to be resuscitated as a viable pathway to wealth distribution within the larger narrative of a “working poor policy.”  He spoke of the failure of the Chicago schools and the Housing Authority in that city,  two things we know today,  in 2012,   14 years after he made these statements,  have failed in the most demonstrative of terms.  See notes on “Robert Taylor housing project”  in the after-notes.  And, know that the Chicago school district sends just 3 black students out of every 100 to college,  a terrible,  terrible statistic.  Everywhere you turn,  the plan for redistribution fails and in no uncertain terms.  More on this in future posts.  

Audio text:  

Let me close by saying as we think about the policy research  surrounding the issue I just named,  policy research for the working poor broadly defined.  I think what we are going to have to do is somehow resuscitate  the notion that government action can be effective at all.  There has been a systematic . . . . ah . . . . I don’t think it too strong to call it a propaganda campaign against the possibility of government action and its efficacy. And,  I think some of it has been deserved, Chicago Housing Authority has not be a model of good policy making, and neither, have been the Chicago Public Schools,  what that means as we try to resuscitate this notion that we are all in this thing together,  leave nobody behind,  we do have to be innovative in thinking how what are the delivery systems that are actually effective and meet people where they live,  and my suggestion would be that the trick  - and this is one of the few areas where I think there are technical issues that have to be dealt with as opposed to just  political issues.   I think the trick is figuring out how do we  structure government systems  that pool resources and, hence, facilitate some redistribution  because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure everyone has a shot.   October 19, 1998
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After notes: 

About the Robert Taylor housing project as administered by the Chicago Housing Authority.  Read more at  Wired New York.  

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes public-housing development is the largest subsidized residential complex in the world. Six of the poorest US census areas with populations above 2,500 are found there. Ninety-five percent of the housing development's 20,000 residents are unemployed and list public assistance as their only income source. And 40 percent of the households are single-parent, female-headed households earning less than $5,000 per year. Rates of violent crime and gang activity are among the highest in Chicago. The Black Kings and the Sharks (affiliates of major Chicago gang families) and the Black Disciples, Vicelords, Black P. Stone Nation, and Mickey Cobras all roost in the housing development. Its landlord, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), has estimated that $45,000 in drug deals take place daffy. Take a casual drive by the housing project: twenty-four drab, sixteen-story concrete high-rises, many blackened with the scars of arson fire, sit in a narrow two-block by two-mile stretch of slum. The city's neglect shows in littered streets, poorly enforced building codes, and scant commercial or civic amenities.