Posted on 06/09/2006 6:30:26 PM PDT by wjersey
So the estate tax cut went down in the Senate, to the cheers of class warriors everywhere. Congratulations to Democratic senators Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Ron Wyden, and Mark Pryor -- all of whom voted against death-tax repeal after voting in favor of it a few years ago. At last, they’ve come to their senses!
Our rich people don’t need another tax break. No, they need higher taxes. And they should be vilified, too. That’s right: America should attack rich people. In fact, we must abolish wealth, which is a tremendous drag on our economy. It’s high time that we made the rich poor.
As for all the xenophobes who want to deport the illegal immigrants who toil in this economy, may I respectfully suggest that their generals (i.e., Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Tom Tancredo) consider expanding their dragnet? Let’s deport rich people, too!
These rich people are bad for America. We don’t need their ingenuity, their entrepreneurship, or their capital investment. In the name of egalitarian socialism, the only thing we need from them is more tax dollars. We now tax their incomes as salary, corporate profits, dividends, capital gains, and at death. But we must do better.
Perhaps we can tax them when they contribute to charities, or the building of a new church or synagogue, or a symphony orchestra, or a small-town cultural center; or when they create another college; or when they finance private scholarships for inner-city educations.
But we can’t stop there. Let’s criminalize the entire class of successful American entrepreneurs. Let’s haul out the distributional tables from the Joint Tax Committee and the Congressional Budget Office and target all upper-end earners for special wealth taxes.
Maybe we can even impose jail sentences on rich people. No more interest income at all, just like the radical fundamentalist Muslims do it!
Here’s a thought: Let’s publish the names of all rich people in the newspapers and on the blog sites. Even better, when fat cats venture out in public, let’s swarm them like those animal-rights advocates who throw paint on women wearing mink coats.
Simply, we must strive to make America more like France and Germany -- those great income-leveling, income-redistribution states. But it’s gonna take some work. When I last checked the international tax tables, I found that the U.S. has the third highest estate-tax rate out of 50 countries. We should be ashamed. Only third? We tax estates at a 46 percent marginal rate, but Japan is the best at 70 percent, followed by South Korea at 50 percent. We are pikers. How can we dare let Japan be ahead of us on taxing rich people?
The fact that 24 countries have a zero estate-tax rate, including China, should not concern us. They don’t know what they’re doing. And we do. We don’t want to be competitive in the world economy. We’d prefer to hang out a sign reading: “Capitalists are unwelcome in the U.S.”
This whole idea of keeping more of what you earn and own is just plain stupid. In fact, this whole capitalistic notion is just one of those bizarre global trends that undoubtedly will be reversed as people come to their senses.
The Czech Republic, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico -- they’re obviously all nuts with their zero tax rates on estates. Did I say Mexico? That’s perfect. Instead of creating thousands of new businesses and millions of new jobs in America, our rich can do this for Mexico. If we deport them, that is. What a great idea!
Forget Sen. Jon Kyl’s fallback position of a 15 percent death-tax rate, after exempting the first $5 million of an estate. That would move us too close to Canada, Australia, and Argentina, which also have zero rates. It would also promote the foolish idea that there is a link between reward and work, and reward and risk.
The whacko ultra-right-wing idea that it must pay after-tax to work and invest is simply insane. Forget what the brilliant Arthur Laffer says. The best way to generate more saving and investment is to tax both more.
This may all sound wrong, but our soak-the-rich liberals are deep thinkers. They have their fingers on the pulse of the hundred-million-strong investor class. They know that the worldwide spread of free-market economics, which was launched by Reagan and Thatcher twenty-five years ago, which has raised global prosperity to record heights, and which has caused the phenomenal growth of the middle class in places like India, China, and Russia, is absolutely nuts.
After all, capital is the enemy of labor! Forget the obvious facts that you can’t create a new job without a business and that you can’t fund a new business without capital. That’s obviously wrong.
Once again, capital is the enemy. Rich people are evil. We have to put an end to all this capitalist, supply-side nonsense.
By the way, when is Karl Marx’s birthday? I have to stop writing now, so I can go look it up. Next May? Well, at least that will give me time to prepare a triumphant celebration for the greatest soak-the-rich advocate of all time.
These dead Americans would be leaving the planet with the national debt they left behind still here for those that follow. What exactly would be conservative about that?
So leave the current estate tax in place and direct the income to paying off the debt with political limitations regarding future spending.
If someone avoids the estate tax who are wealthy, it would be because they left the money out of the country in a tax haven or the money is in a trust not directly in their name.
The middle class for the most part gets a nice deduction before any money gets taxes and that same deduction is applied to the most wealthy.
I find it contemptible, pathetic and desperate for some people to claim conservatism but to be so selfish as to be willing to leave their debts to the innocent unborn who would inherit a debt they had no part in making.
Consesrvatism is not defined as running away from the check when the bill is due.
Responsibility is not giving your debt to your heirs.
To say and believe what you do IMO requires all conservative values to be thrown out the window to the detriment of future generations.
That is a most selfish act.
So the National Debt is worrying you. Have you ever look at the history of the Debt?
http://www.toptips.com/debt_history.htm
The only time that the debt has declined for any reasonable period was from 1920 to 1930 where it went down yearly.
You want to reduce the debt then forget about taxes get another Calvin Coolidge in the White House.
Speak for yourself, Ace. I pay my share and then some.
argumentum ad misdirection-by-touching-anecdote.
you were indebted, and you paid to discharge that debt; the millionaires and other business proprietors were the channel that passed on the money.
The history is what it is, but the debt is here and needs to be reduced or eliminated.
We shouldn't pass this like a curse down through to future generations.
But what you paid hasn't addressed the national debt, so if we are going to still take in an estate tax, direct it toward that rather than have the additional money go to more stupid spending on entitlements.
This from Fortune Magazine.....March 2006
What's an appropriate debt/GDP ratio? The best-known benchmark has been the 60 percent Maastricht upper limit for countries hoping to adopt the Euro. But John Chambers, chairman of the sovereign rating committee at Standard & Poor's, says that economic stability and good government policies count for as much or more in credit ratings as the debt/GDP number. .....The U.S. scores high in both those categories, and is one of two-dozen countries whose government debt gets S&P's highest rating, AAA -- despite a debt/GDP ratio slightly above the AAA average. So yes, the nation's fiscal position has worsened significantly during the Bush presidency, and for that the president and Congress deserve to catch flak. But those who yelp about "record" deficits and "record" debt and imminent bankruptcy are blowing smoke. "The fiscal debt of the U.S. is not at an alarming level," S&P's Chambers says.
That is an incorrect statement. We all have that debt. Out of what thin air did you expect to get that paid if not by the citizens of the United States?
You've put your finger on the cultural disconnect between elitist Republicans and more populist conservatives. It goes a long way in explaining the crude cluelessness Bush has in dealing with Joe Sixpack on the subject of immigration.
Bush and his family like their cheap servants, and cannot be convinced that he just might not be entitled to be waited on. He even gets sentimental about them, and decides to give away US sovereignty to Mexicans.
But he expects and wants to leave his full fortune to his own children (with maybe a check for Maria for being such a treasure and almost a member of the family).
Well, I want to leave the United States of America to American children!!!!
But the country-club Republicans can't grasp that the issues are essentially the same. And somebody needs to clue these elites in but fast, or we're going down in November.
Joe Sixpack does not have millions to leave to his kids, but he would like to leave them America.
Excellent satire from Larry Kudlow.
The sad part is that it's closer to the truth, than one would like it to be.
The Dems are indeed trying to turn the US into a socialist country, even though E Europe and the Ex-Soviet Union are historical examples of the failure of the socialist system -- and so are W Europe.
The capitalist system may not be perfect, but it sure beats all the other systems.
Destroying wealth is like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The "rich" are already paying some 80-90% of the income taxes, what more do the Dems want, blood? And the rich not only pay taxes, but they are the ones who employ other people, who work, live, pay taxes.
You are delusional....
And, you didn't answer my question....is your house paid for?
Did anyone ping you to this excellent satire by Larry Kudlow, about today's "soak the rich and tax them out of existence" mentality?
Consulting area, but I won't say specifically what.
I also don't say specifically what area I live in, or specifically my age, weight or what I look like.
We have lots of people who are not our friends that read here B84, so I keep most of the specifics private.
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