[VTenigma]

I guess I didn’t get that gene.

[little jeremiah]

I don’t have any socialism in my head. Maybe because I am a high school drop out/kick out and never attended any institutions of higher learning.

Interesting article.

[econjack]

So once you’ve died, and no longer have property rights society needs to protect, there’s no particular moral precept that points toward helping your children inherit. On a moral level, I’d be perfectly comfortable with a 100 percent tax on anything you haven’t passed on before your death.

Couldn't disagree more. I worked hard before retirement so I wouldn't be a financial burden on my kids. Why should I work hard enough to provide beyond my immediate needs if you're going to take it all away when I die? What did you do to earn it? Personally, I would replace welfare with workfare. Anyone drawing transfer payments must show up for work at 7AM and do whatever public work needs to be done. My money should be used for 1) policing property rights, including a standing military, and 2) provide social overhead capital, like a public road system. Gov't should not be using my money to get re-elected by giving cell phones to deadbeats. Giving them everything I have left simply because I was killed in an accident and didn't give my money away soon enough make zero sense to me.

[alexander_busek]

Now I’ll add another proposition: Society does not have an interest in your desire to ensure that your children are better off than other children. I understand that you have a great interest in this matter. I applaud the tireless work you put in to this end. But society’s job is all children, not specific children who are lucky enough to have hit the genetic lottery. [...] On a moral level, I’d be perfectly comfortable with a 100 percent tax on anything you haven’t passed on before your death.

Gee, I wonder if the estate planners and investment advisors and attorneys of really rich old people would find a perfectly legal (if cumbersome, or - for "ordinary" people - impossibly difficult) method to then avoid such a 100% death tax?

But society’s job is all children and their right to inherit, not specific children who are unlucky enough [...]

See: That same logic could be used to argue for the exactly opposite policy!

Regards,

[bray]

If you are on Social Security, Medicare or Medicade you are forced to believe in Socialism.

[Davy Crocket]

Something like earned income tax credit.. where you only earn enough like $15000 pay in $50 to get a huge tax return like $8000 to 12000 from the hard working tax payers..

[Organic Panic]

You can read it here plenty of times.

“Trump should do this”
“Trump should do that”
“Trump should do XYZ “

[fieldmarshaldj]

It’s often the human instinct to want to help those in need and using the government to do so. The problem is that there’s good help and bad, and often the result is bad and enabling of negative behavior and costly to both the society and to the taxpayers.

[LambSlave]

This article could have been reduced to a few short sentences, or maybe even one. Many self-identified “conservatives” are actually socialists, since their entire worldview is predicated on the ideal that the rights of the collective trump the rights of the individual. Government has no inherent responsibility for anyone’s children, only to maintain order so that each individual can provide for their own.

[PGalt]

But society’s job is all children...

It takes a socialist to raze a republic.

[detsaoT]

I think all this really means is that Meagan McArdle has successfully transferred all of her assets to a blind trust, and is no longer bound by any form of estate tax.

Hypocrisy is one of the most universal of human conditions, after all...

[kosciusko51]

Now I’ll add another proposition: Society does not have an interest in your desire to ensure that your children are better off than other children. I understand that you have a great interest in this matter. I applaud the tireless work you put in to this end. But society’s job is all children, not specific children who are lucky enough to have hit the genetic lottery.

If you take this to its extreme, then the children from wealthy families should be deported to Bangladesh upon the death of a parent, because, after all, being born in America is another "win" in life's lottery.