NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey has Sanders Besting Trump, Rubio.
- Thread starter piezoe
- Start date
My apologies. Your posts were quite similar in content to globuli's, and I mistook one for the other. My mistake. I had just gotten back from the gym when I mistook globuli's quote for yours. I'm not at my cognitive best immediately post workout. Therefore, please scratch the "cat herding" remark that I directed at you, because it clearly applied to me today.
Last edited:
apology accepted, carry on. I don't go to the gym anymore, but I smoke that pot and drink that beer and I'm not always at my "cognitive best" when I get done with my workout.
No need to make this personal. It's just a pleasant disagreement or trying to find a common ground on what we who pay for it thinks should be the role of government.
When you are poor and don't pay any taxes you want the government to do everything. If you got a problem you want them to solve it.
Once you start paying your first taxes you hate them.
When you start paying a lot of taxes, well, then you have some power don't you?
Not "you" in particular, but just people in general. The funny thing is when I had a stay at home wife and three kids in diapers I was living in gov assisted housing (and it was really nice!) and they came up with the notorious PROP 13 in Calif which cut a lot of spending. I was on my way to catch the bus to go to work and a local 3 reporter stopped me to ask what I thought about Prop 13. I told her I was all for it. She asked, "But won't that make it harder for poor people like you?"
I answered, "Yeah, but I don't plan on always being poor."
Last edited:
When did it become a bad thing that families keep their property? And how is it that
not having the Feds confiscate 1/2 of an estate's assets is exempting heirs from paying their own way? They still pay their own way as it's the family's money and property to dispose of as it sees fit, not how you see fit. I never heard of an heir to a $5 million+ estate qualifying for welfare. We aren't talking about 21 year old kids getting a sudden windfall. Most of the very wealthy die at a ripe old age, and have adult children who have been working and productive their whole lives, all of whom are generating significant tax revenue for the benefit of the unfortunate. The welfare system has been far more damaging to our economy and social fabric than the accumulation of family wealth. The welfare system allows for chronic impoverishment
and a permanent underclass spanning generations. It discourages work and self improvement and encourages promiscuous child production. It goes hand in hand with people whose morals would shame an alley cat, and who have no interest in or incentive for education or in obeying laws. Total welfare spending in the US will approach $1 trillion in 2016, and I don't think that includes the 120 billion in food the Dept. of Agriculture provides the public*. How unfortunate the "unfortunate" truly are.
The estate tax is very different from other taxes as it does not target flows of funds that income, capital gains and sales taxes do. It directly attacks property, assets and businesses,
often undoing family businesses in one swoop. It is confiscatory as it forces liquidation.
My position is the estate tax is too aggressive, and has become a nice tool for politicians to raise tax revenue and raise campaign contributions. It has gone way beyond its original purpose: to break up fantastic dynastic accumulations of wealth, a purpose I think is healthy and good. We have become a society in which the people plunder the people via government action or coercion, whether it is by excessive taxation or by special tax breaks, or corporate welfare, or individual welfare, or civil forfeiture, or wasteful government spending designed to fatten the pockets of special interests. We have become a nation of pigs feeding at the trough (I know, you think it is ironic I say that)
I support progressive income taxation, and social security and medicare taxes. . I don't support confiscatory taxation. Welfare policy is too aggressive as well, for reasons previously stated.
*(http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2016USbn_17bs2n_4060#usgs302)
Last edited:
My observation way not specifically about taxation. It was about your general rule:
So the destitute get nothing, and the inheritance lottery winners, who didn't even buy a ticket, keep all their winnings. ("Winnings" because they didn't work for it.) Since the estate tax reportedly only affects the top one fifth of one percent, I'm sure these downtrodden souls appreciate your giving them a voice.
Last edited:
Yes, Fidel, the destitute get nothing for doing nothing, and families keep their property. If you ever accumulate wealth, you will probably gain a greater respect for property rights. If you remain poor, you will probably maintain the view that you are entitled to the belongings of others.
The implication of your comment on "winnings" is that you believe that estates should face 100% taxation with no exclusion as you appear to regard inheritance with such disdain. Where else do you want to take this policy? Can I pay for my child's college education as I do now without incurring a gift tax, or must I pay a gift tax on the post tax income I use to pay tuition? After all, you must think my child has somehow "won" the money.
Last edited:
The point is, under conditions of growing inequality of property and power, accumulating wealth becomes increasingly more difficult for a larger share of the population. Birth takes on the more glaring characteristics of a lottery. It may be base human nature to leave one's lifetime pile to one's children, but it is anti-meritocratic. The latter is what de-legitimizes the social order in the minds of many. Polarization is no good for anyone, the growing ranks of the have-nots spread greater resentment, and the shrinking ranks of the haves become paranoid. This should not be surprising if you're a student of history, but what's really unfortunate is that the deserving wealthy, the ones who really did something to "make it", are during crisis simply lumped in for treatment with the merely lucky.
Hard to imagine in the US, and we'll probably not see it in our lifetimes, for a couple of reasons. One, these things take time, sometimes centuries. Second, in our own history, when discontent has risen high enough we've responded pretty well. We're a pretty flexible society, maybe precisely because of one man one vote.
(Not to mention that we do have the lessons of history literally at our fingertips nowadays.)
Growing inequality of property is a symptom of real structural distortions in the economy and the legal and political system. Confiscatory taxation does nothing to address this. You can't do much to raise the standard of living and opportunity for the stagnating middle class by increasing taxes at the top. At best you can provide some tax relief for the middle class by shifting some of the burden, but tax policy is not an effective means of addressing imbalances and anti-meritocracy.
I freely admit I hit the lottery by circumstances of my birth. I am a Jew born into a successful family in the United States in the mid 20th century, and that is hitting the historical lottery.