How's the shrubbery? (An assessment of Bush)

[Marko Kloos]

America is fighting a war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, is this the right time to hand the rich a big fat tax cut??

I am so tired of the twisted semantics that define letting someone keep more of their own money as "handing them something". If I mug you in a parking lot, and then I give you back a $20 bill so you can take a cab home, am I "handing" you something?

When government spends like a drunken teenager with dad's credit card, the solution is not to whine that dad doesn't put in enough overtime, but to kick the little punk's ass and take away the plastic.

I believe most of the people on this board are regular working folks, so what did you get? $100? a week? a month? a year?

Yes, I am regular working folk, and so is my wife. We didn't "get" a lousy red cent last year. On the contrary, we were relieved of several ten thousand dollars of our hard-earned money at gunpoint. After taking our money all year, the government graciously returned a small portion of our own money to us.

I don't want to get anything from the government. I don't want to be handed a portion of someone else's paycheck, whether it's Bill Gates or my neighbor. I just want to keep what I make.

What is this obsession with rich people and "allowing" them to keep the fruits of their labors? Who are you to claim the moral authority to "allow" anyone to keep their own money?

Money in private hands does not necessarily benefit the nation.

Like I 've said before, there is no mythical entity called "the nation" or "society", whose welfare supersedes all property rights. The nation is a collection of individuals, and when you say that privately held money doesn't benefit the nation, you're saying that it doesn't benefit some of those individuals at the expense of others.

Besides, your premise is all wrong. Money in private hands does benefit society. It's a reward for productivity, it constitutes the basis for property rights, it drives the economy, and it give speople a basis for exchanging values voluntarily.

Money in public hands, on the other hands, is not a benefit to society. It is always the product of strong-arm robbery, it is squandered and wasted by those who have not lifted a finger to earn it, and it is used mainly as a bribe for securing votes.

 

[LAK]

Benonymous

The point I was driving at before was this. America is fighting a war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, is this the right time to hand the rich a big fat tax cut??

Of course it is; it is the rich that make those big campaign contributions that put people like Comrade Bush in Office. And those big tax cuts for the rich no doubt increase his popularity among his family and other wealthy cronies.

Bush has people at odds over his "tax cut for the rich", and it is a good thing - it keeps them busy. In the end they can console themselves; "Well, it could be worse. We could have had Kerry!". Another exceedingly rich man who probably likes Bush's "tax cut for the rich", as do no doubt his excedingly wealthy cronies.

This as opposed to demanding some decisive action that will axe the socialist programs and aid spending, domestic and foreign, from our public purse, getting us out of that criminal organization known as the U.N., it's sister cartels known as the IMF and World Bank - thus saving us huge amounts of money and waste. And putting tariffs on the cheap labor goods flooding us from places like China - thus recreating a manufacturing base in this country and jobs.

Nah, better to console ourselves that we didn't get Kerry, and continue to try and justify the inactions of people like Bush and why perhaps the government should take whole chunks of the wealth accumulated by our parents. This used to be called a birthright. Perhaps it should be changed to a "social-" or "communityright" instead.

 

[Fred Hansen]

Bush's spin on this tax cut was that it would stimulate business by allowing the rich to remain rich in perpetuity.

No, that was your spin on it. So what if rich people did "remain rich in perpetuity"? How is that a crime? How does working hard and becoming rich make a person worthy of being robbed by government?

I'm not sure what to make of your post really. You are indignant because the government stole 40% of your rightful inheritance - which is understandable since it was your grandfather's wish that his hard work and investment go to his loved ones - yet in the same breath you seem to think that other wealthy people aren't entitled to determine what happens to their hard earned money.

You say things like:

Money in private hands does not necessarily benefit the nation.

Who ever said that it must? If a person is so all fired concerned that the "nation" needs more money, then it should be incumbent upon him to go out and make a bunch of money of his own so he may give it to the "nation" he is so terribly worried about.

As far as any shortfall our government may encounter, new taxes of any kind should be the absolute last resort. Our first course of action should be to eliminate those portions of our government that have no business existing in the first place. That is to say if a department of government is not directly involved in either national security, or law enforcement, it is time for that department to go. Enough with the handouts and entitlements. Let the welfare types go out and show us all how "easy" it is to be rich.

What I really can't figure out is why flak jackets - for the very people who make the retrograde empire of the U.K. possible in the first place - seem to strike you as the greatest indignity of them all.

 

[Benonymous]

What has been the primary cause of revolution in human history? I'll fill you in, a massive division of wealth between rich and poor. In recent times some revolutions seem to have been "soft" like the Russians change from communism to free market but that was because they were broke and could'nt enforce the system any longer. Taxes like the estate tax have a purpose in "redistributing" wealth. I'm sure that there may be a better way to do it but it's pretty effective. I can see the point that's being made over and over which is "it's my money, I earned it, I'll say where it goes!" Fair enough, but where will the money come from that the estates tax would have provided? A different tax on the rich? Don't think so, rich people have the means to avoid tax, Rupert Murdoch recently relocated a few zillion to a Bermuda to avoid paying any tax on it. He's happy to do business in a country but unhappy about paying any taxes there. Do any of the members of this forum have accounts in Bermuda to get their wages paid into? No? Why? because the IRS would jump on you and prosecute you for tax avoidance, you don't have the money or droves of lawyers to defend yourself So you'll do what I do, you'll bitch about it but you'll pay up! Will Rupert? Hell no! I know what the response here is likely to be "So what if he's put all his money in a tax haven! It's HIS money! But you still have to pay your taxes when he doesn't But I can tell you from experience, a "death duty" is something even Rupert couldn't completely duck, he can't live forever. Naieve? possibly but even if you only got him for a little bit of tax, its better than nothing at all. The only thing about the 40% we had to sport up for tax when my Grandad died was that there was a way to minimise the tax, if he'd wanted to do it. This would have involved him incrementally giving his estate away but as he was using it for his income and security in retirement he was (naturally) reluctant to let it go piece by piece. That was his call and I never criticized it. I don't beleive he could have possibly redistributed the whole estate, tax rules would have precluded it by limiting the per annum amounts. So we would have been taxed anyway, just a little less.
Call me a socialist if you like but the money that was taxed off us went to further "the common good". Taxes pay for police, fire brigades, roads, national parks and armed forces. A fair tax system draws money for these services from all segments of society and I think an estates tax acknowledges that you need a difficult-to-dodge tax for the upper end of society to cream off a little of what they avoided paying when they were alive.
Was it Jonathan Winters in the movie "Its a mad mad mad mad world" who said " Everyones got to pay taxes, even businessmen who lie and cheat and steal every day, even they have to pay taxes!" Nuff said.

 

[johnbt]

"Money in private hands does not necessarily benefit the nation."

Only if it's under the mattress or buried in the yard.

Otherwise, it's invested somewhere and much of it is available for you and me and all the other working stiffs to borrow. Rich folks buy things and create jobs. Remember the luxury tax on yachts? It put a lot of boatyards out of business and a lot of workers got hurt. It was another dumb idea brought to us by politicians.

"Call me a socialist"

Okay, you're a socialist.

John

 

[kjm]

What has been the primary cause of revolution in human history? I'll fill you in, a massive division of wealth between rich and poor. In recent times some revolutions seem to have been "soft" like the Russians change from communism to free market but that was because they were broke and could'nt enforce the system any longer.

Oh- lord! talking revolution because somebody else is keeping what is theirs and the proletariat is upset. How much more unfair can a system be than to reward the hard workers with wealth, and reward the non-workers with relative security by taking a portion of the wealth the achievers earned.

I'll repeat it once more for those who didn't listen in the other thread. In America, the wealthy pay enormous sums of money to educate the next generation. I believe it stays around $7,000.00 per student per year. Even at 6K, that means that the taxpayers handed each and every child (legal or illegal) a $60,000.00 education just for existing.

Some of those children take advantage of it. One of the associate vice presidents of Prudential was born in India in bleak conditions. His parents immigrated here and they were the poorest people I knew. His school would not be highly rated by current standards, but he studied hard and then went into debt to finance an excellent education (oh- let's not forget that the taxpayers foot a large part of the bill at State Universities too). He now is earning a rather large chunk of money each year.

If after $60,000.00 was spent on you to educate you, to train you and to equip you and still your job skills cannot get you out of the "proletariat" class, YOU ARE A LOSER AND DESERVE TO STAY THERE. In fact, you should be ashamed of yourself for wasting the gifts of the taxpayers as well as your own potential.

This isn't Russia. You aren't born in a caste where you will exist forever.

The reason there isn't revolution in America is because you still have a say, and this is still one of the few places in the world where people still flock to because it is awash in opportunities.


Interestingly you use Rupert Murdoch. He is an Australian. Just one more immigrant who came here and made a ton of cash! Thanks Newscorp!

 

[Benonymous]

I knew you'd pull me up on Rupert Murdoch!

 

[LAK]

Benonymous

What has been the primary cause of revolution in human history? I'll fill you in, a massive division of wealth between rich and poor

Actually, this is generally not the case. A division in wealth is generally what has been used to drum up popular support for revolutions. But revolutions are generally well-planned, instigated and yes - funded. It takes alot of money to start and sustain a revolution. They do not just spring up among the poor.

And the proof is, as they say, in the pudding. Just look at what has eventually - often rapidly - befallen the people of many a nation who have been led to overthrow the "wealthy and educated".

But objectivity has been lost in the endless debates about our "economy" and it's related issues. We have to decide where we want to be - what is the goal.

What is the goal, the logical and rational goal, of every citizen? Financial independence, or self-sufficiency. So the aggregate measure of a nation's success in this regard is how many people are financially independent or self-sufficient. How many people own their property and do not need to borrow or use public money? What impediments - actions and inactions on the part of the government - are getting in the way of this?

The same principle can be applied to the nation as a whole, as a nation can be seen as the sum of it's citizens.

So the enemy here is not the division in wealth - it is the division of power and control. Wealth is not created to be "divided" - rather everyone is at liberty to and should be unhindered from creating their own wealth. And to accumilate it. Not have chunks of it taken from them in perpetuity.

We had an oppressive system of controls and taxation emerge in this country in less than 150 years from it's birth. We need that dealing with - not more ways to "divide wealth".

 

[Robert Allison]

While I do not disagree that inheritance tax on the very wealthy (and by that I am now inclined to define "very wealthy" as just that, i.e., in excess of, say, $25,000,000 simply because relatively small parcels of land which, in the past, were of nominal value and used for agricultural purposes, are now "worth" a great deal) isn't an altogether bad idea societally speaking, it concerns me that the government has perpetrated such a multi-level Ponzi scheme on us over the years through it's system of taxation. Take a simple example of a single $100 bill. It comes into my office to pay a fee. My bookkeeper records it (yes, I do declare the cash I receive) and it then goes to the bank. The next day I write a check to the telephone company to pay my phone bill. Two days later the phone company pays George, an installer. George goes to Bob's Gun Shop and pays the final $100 on that Sig he's had on layaway. So, in the course of less than a week there has been $100 in taxable income to me, the phone company, George and Bob's Gun Shop, all generated by the fact that the government printed one $100 bill. Repeat that countless times over the course of a given day across the country, and multiply by the number of days on the calendar, and you get the picture.

Then you take that same $100 bill.....when last we heard it had been paid to Bob's for the Sig. Bob pays Phil, one of his salesmen. Phil is frugal, he deposits the money in a savings account and there it remains until Phil's untimely demise in an automobile accident a few years later. During that time, the $100 was taxed one more time, income to Phil, but while it resided in his savings account the gov't didn't get anything other than a little bit of tax on the interest earned. But upon his death it may get yet another cut, depending on the inheritance tax laws in effect, the size of Phil's estate, etc. Seems to me the gov't has made out pretty well on that single $100 bill, wouldn't you agree. Taxed as ordinary income five times, tax on the interest, and maybe tax on the inheritance. Basically, the government gets back as much or more in taxes as they are able to "print" in currency.