Posted on 09/30/2017 8:04:42 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
It isn’t the fortunes that are the problem, it is the foundations that let them shelter the wealth they still control while others pay heavily for the privilege of accumulating wealth in their own lifetimes.
Sure they can benefit; is the death tax rate 100%?
I have no issue with elites; all the power to them! I have issues with hereditary elites - we used to call them aristocracies and such.
You are talking about a handful out of tens of thousands. If you are OK with your great-grandchildren being ruled by Walton’s heirs, that is your choice/right.
You’re probably right in the sense they may have figured their heirs would have an easy time of it; this really was a land of opportunity a long time ago.
Some responding to my post seem to think I’m advocating for a 100% death tax; I said no such thing.
The thought process long preceded the Depression and came from the 19th Century, from the intellectual roots of so-called “progressivism” or socialism. It took decades for the progressives to sell the idea. The Depression simply was them stepping up to sell the stupid that had been previously better resisted.
Even then they pitched these things as only applying to the ultra-rich ... whom they always them (”they” also being “them”) would be protected. The intent, as with income taxes billed the same way, was to get them in and then expand them down. Incrementalism, just like with all leftist and those opposed to Liberty.
I would also point out that Social Security was ALSO just about funding the government, no matter what FDR etc claimed. They ALWAYS turned the money left over to Congress to spend. The “savings” were in the form of “bonds” where the same entity both owned the bond and owed the debt, which is an absurdity. They were always from the beginnings unsecured promissory debts.
I like to think of it this way: have your right hand write out a promise to repay to your left hand and then take that promise to repay in your left hand to a bank and claim it is an asset to be used for collateral. If you do so, barring the possibility that you’ve just found the dumbest bank officer in the country, they will be laughing their asses off while they are likely calling the Feds on you for securities fraud.
As for what LBJ started spending, and which ran dry early in Reagan’s tenure, that could have only been the reputed value on the books on the one set of ledgers completely ignoring that said “assets” were entirely offset by the matching obligations (plus “interest”). Poetically: they found a way to spend the same money TWICE. Realistically: they were printing money outta nothing on the sly, unreported and without official congressional approval to print it.
It may not entirely be a coincidence that accelerated inflation started spiking after this inflating of the money supply started, went down after it ran out, and hasn’t returned to that extent since.
In short: “progressivism” is founded on lies, abuses and fraud ... no wonder it has gone and keeps going from bad to worse ... till there is now nothing of the old extreme left that is extreme to the left anymore.
Even national destruction (rejecting sovereignty) perversions and insanity are now openly celebrated by the powers that be on the left.
In a society that doesn’t let them protect and control the wealth that is the source of their power but goes after others they will eventually sort themselves out.
Aristocrats weren’t aristocrats just because they had money, indeed many didn’t, but because they could PROTECT what they had and act to keep others, even if they had money, out.
It’s money that was already taxed when earned. Doing it again is double taxation. So while removing state tax exemptions, money is indeed being doubly taxed. But as with the inheritance tax, double taxation is alive and well in the US.
Tax was taken when mobey earned. Property taxed annually. Then you want to steal children’s inhertance.
Thief.
Not so. 80% of US millionaires are first generation affluent US millionaires.
If you are OK with your great-grandchildren being ruled by Walton’s heirs, that is your choice/right.
I take a Darwinian approach to inheritance. If the Walton heirs inherit the wit, wisdom and frugality of Sam Walton I would far rather they inherit the money than Uncle Sam. If they don't they will spend it in some way to increase the GDP and bankrupt themselves ( See the Vanderbilts, Hartfords, Kluges, Strohs, Pulitzers, Goulds, etc etc)
What do you expect? Teddy was a big government progressive.
TR was also an Imperialist...we should embrace that too?
Don’t you pay sales tax on items after you’ve paid income tax on the money you’re spending?
bkmk
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