I think that he means explicit wealth redistribution. If government uses your tax money to to finance the police system, sure it is moving wealth around, but a healthy police is necessary for a free society and functioning economy, so in the end, everyone benefits. This is different from just taking from one group and giving to another.
Well, if the government takes some tax money and uses that to prop up an industry that directly or indirectly employs 6 million people, that too helps everyone. Those people while employed buy things, pay taxes, don't create an oversupply of workers that lowers wages for everyone, etc.
It's not as cut and dry as some Robinhoodesque vision of taking taxes from some and giving to another, which McCain and Palin wanted you to believe. It's quite possible that the $25 billion loaned will not only return the taxpayers more than $25 billion directly, but also create a net positive economic impact of more than that.
that too helps everyone - no it doesn't; not in the long run.
I honestly don't know what McCain & Palin have been saying about this (nor do I care) but corporate welfare undermines accountability at the corporate level. Accountability is absolutely essential to functioning of the market and handouts such as these have been undermining the US auto industry since the fifties. This is a very large part of the reason that they are in trouble today. If we are concerned about the employees, we should just give them the money directly, but giving the money to the corporate execs is essentially rewarding bad behavior and staving off the inevitable. Corporate handouts are like stimulants for the economy; they provide a short-term high, but they will be followed by a corresponding low and the longer you prolong treatment, the longer and more powerful the low.
BTW a labor surplus isn't necessarily so bad a thing; employment for the sake of employment is almost as bad an economic policy as corporate welfare (It's one of the more obvious failures of the New Deal.) and if the big three are no longer profitable, that is what this bailout amounts to.
