Posted on 09/30/2017 8:04:42 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Chalk another one up for big government progressivism. I recently posted about progressive republicans and the 16th amendment, having learned during that research that this was the case: I did not know previously that TR supported the death tax. Here is what he said in 1906:
As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual-a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. Again, the national government must in some form exercise supervision over corporations engaged in interstate business-and all large corporations engaged in interstate business-whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with the far reaching evils of overcapitalization."
Perhaps we should propose an amendment which would strike out "We the People" and replace it "We the Government". This is insanely insulting, but it's typical for people who's minds have been infected and polluted by the ideologies of social justice.
I will have to give him this: TR was a masterful, masterful propagandist. His skill was that of omission. Note the things I bolded.
So who will determine which fortunes are "swollen" beyond health limits? Of course! You guessed it, commissars in bureaucracies! Big government will do it.
Who will supervise the supervisors? Nobody. Government controls you.
Who determines what a "healthy limit" is? What if you are just below that "healthy limit", will you be endlessly harassed by overzealous regulators? Well we can't allow you to amass too much, now can we?
It is interesting to note in what speech Theodore Roosevelt made these comments. "The Man with the Muck Rake" That's right! While TR was lauding his journalist friends who were pimping fake news across the country, he was currying favor with them with the sweet, sweet sound of death tax lullibies. Here, read the speech. Right before that paragraph that I quoted, here's what he said:
It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business. We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes ill won; between those gained as an incident to performing great services to the community as a whole and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the limits of mere law honesty. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them.
You see, government should be in the business of determining the use of your fortunes.
Government should determine if your fortune was ill won.
Government knows best, not you.
Government, government, government. By leaving so many things open to government, this leads to the largest government the world has ever seen.
Theodore Roosevelt clearly believed that the most beautiful words in the English language were as follows:
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".
I'm quite convinced that most people don't actually read Theodore Roosevelt's own words or look at his actions directly, thus they don't really know just how big of a big government guy he truely was. Instead, a bunch of propagandist fake-historians have falsely portrayed him in ways that are unwarranted by the facts, thus the re-invention of him as a "conservative".
Want to curtail the elites? Don’t tax people trying to accumulate wealth (as Kennedy tried) and encourage the rich to have large, well educated and industrious families rather than small, entitled folks who mainly know how to make money with money (if they even know that) rather than by growing, moving, making or inventing stuff themselves.
The elites won’t be as elite with more folks moving in.
But if you want to protect the elite families of the early 20th century into future centuries you imposes steep taxes on those trying to build wealth, confiscate it from the merely well of and rich when they die, but allow great fortunes to be shielded though still controlled by the children of the old elites. Make everything about banks, bankers and lawyers to the extent that it is possible too.
Tax the becoming-rich to preserve the elites.
So you are a socialist.
With a death tax and a legal system that allows wealth above a certain level to be shielded you enshrine the elites.
Elites happen (like shit). If you can deal with that and not twist society and laws to try to prevent them you may find they won’t matter as much because new blood will constantly be added and those may be folks like the guys who started those great fortunes.
You know, people who frequently made fortunes making stuff people wanted, at a price they were willing to pay (in truth they WERE voted for on their way up, every time people chose to buy from them. It is mainly the bankers and lawyers that were not producers of value).
Not so. The four richest men in the US are self made billionaires. The majority of the top twenty are self made. The Waltons of Walmart fame are the richest family but that's because Sam Walton at a very early stage in his business career made his four kids equal partners in the business so they are actually first generation rich.
Gates and Buffet have pledged to leave the majority of their fortunes to charity which unfortunately will inevitably become controlled by left wingers (See Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations)
Exactly!
Those are the hereditary elite. Ban them.
Not a chance. That's how the left fund groups like Antifa.
Teddy Roosevelt was among the worst presidents in history. When cousin FDR passed it was a good day for America.
Many of the Hereditary elite, or for that matter those who earned theirs, form foundations to continue doing what they might consider to be good for a community, and start out as fairly conservative in their views and what they are willing to support. Over time and with their deaths, the foundations continue tax free, and are taken over by boards of directors or individuals with ideas and values NOT shared by those whose names appear on the Foundation. Thus much of the wealth is then used to advance an agenda in sharp contrast to the values that originally inspired the Foundation.
And the irony is, it was because of tax laws aimed at preventing hereditary family elites, that giant “charitable” foundations were formed, which turned out to be worse; in fact, the exact thing the “progressives” claimed to be trying to prevent with their tax laws.
Today’s foundations and their wealth, power, unaccountability, and unlimited life remind me of the vast monastery and church holdings in medieval Europe.
You can find Roosevelt urging Congress to adopt both a graduated inheritance tax and a graduated income tax in his December 3, 1906 Message to Congress, but it's clear that the inheritance tax was closer to his heart than the income tax. It's a moot point now. The federal government has grown to the point where it can't rely on just an inheritance tax, however heavy and however steep the rates, but was he wrong about preferring corporate and estate taxes to taxes on income?
One reason why he wanted more taxes was that empire and war were on his mind:
It must ever be kept in mind that war is not merely justifiable, but imperative, upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare. Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness; but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping. Neither can a nation, which is an entity, and which does not die as individuals die, refrain from taking thought for the interest of the generations that are to come, no less than for the interest of the generation of to-day; and no public men have a right, whether from shortsightedness, from selfish indifference, or from sentimentality, to sacrifice national interests which are vital in character. A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice. Moreover, tho it is criminal for a nation not to prepare for war, so that it may escape the dreadful consequences of being defeated in war, yet it must always be remembered that even to be defeated in war may be far better than not to have fought at all. As has been well and finely said, a beaten nation is not necessarily a disgraced nation; but the nation or man is disgraced if the obligation to defend right is shirked.
Another may have been his fear of revolution if popular discontent wasn't appeased:
The reactionary or ultraconservative apologists for the misuse of wealth assail the effort to secure such control as a step toward socialism. As a matter of fact it is these reactionaries and ultraconservatives who are themselves most potent in increasing socialistic feeling. One of the most efficient methods of averting the consequences of a dangerous agitation, which is 80 per cent wrong, is to remedy the 20 per cent of evil as to which the agitation is well rounded.
P.S. Letter from Kenya. Suspicious?
TEFRA was Bob Dole’s gigantic tax hike of 1982.
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Introduced all sorts of new surveillance, in addition to the tax hikes.
The irony is that nobody was as much a hereditary elite as the Roosevelts.
It could be that TR thought that the inheritance tax would only hit massive industrial or corporate fortunes like Rockefeller's, Harriman's, and Carnegie's and leave older elites with their smaller fortunes intact.
If Theodore and Franklin believed that their background and position in society made possible whatever they contributed to the nation it seems a bit strange that they'd want to liquidate the fortunes that made their achievements possible, but maybe they thought their children and grandchildren would easily find careers in the growing government sector or elsewhere in the economy.
In any event, none of the subsequent Roosevelts rose as high as TR or FDR. FDR's kids more or less drifted after he died.
High income taxes FOSTER the elite, because they prevent NEW fortunes.
The “rich” get rich by producing things people want and need. It’s when they decide to “give back” that they become DESTROYERS. They fund Marxism, abortion, population control, social engineering, etc., etc.
Anytime you hear a billionaire or millionaire talking about “giving back,” RUN.
It was Carnegie and Rockefeller who funded the underhanded terror campaign that imposed government schooling on the U.S.
Many preachers who opposed government schools were offered beautiful new pipe organs. They got the message and “changed their tune.”
The death tax only provides 0.6% of federal revenues. It’s a who-cares as far as the federal budget is concerned. Furthermore, it induces all kinds of irrational, unproductive activity by those trying to avoid it.
Death tax, be gone!
So you are a monarchist.
So you don’t want your kids to benefit from what you earned in your life. Sucks to be them.
Well said.
And he’s been paying for that decision ever since.
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