Liberalism has won(part 2)

jillian said:
Try another example.... I earn X dollars a week and pay 40% tax on it. I have a full time sitter who gets $300 a week. She's supposed to pay taxes on that $300 a week. The argument that it's double taxed is a fallacious one.
No it isn't. The sitter as incured earned income, she performed a service to gain monies. A person wanting to give his own money to his heirs should not be interfered by the government. Would you support legislation that required everyone to pay a death tax regardless how large or how small the estate was?


jillian said:
Things are double taxed all the time (e.g., If I sell goods, I pay sales tax on them when I buy them for my store...then when you come into my shop, you pay sales tax again).

Not true, if you are conducting business in such a manner there is a better way, contact your state for a Tax ID number. I wholesale thousands of dollars of product everyday to businesses and collect no tax on them, however my customers do collect tax when they sell to the end user.
 
thread, I'm bothered by the assumption that liberalism means wanting to spend unnecessarily.

The real question, is how much we want government to do, versus how much we'd rather do for ourselves.

Take Powerman's initial example of "stupid" seat-belt laws.

Seat belt laws keep people from losing control of their vehicles, and reduce their and others' rate of injury. That's not a purely personal issue, since the average head injury, for example, costs $500,000 to treat, and chronic head injury can easily cost several million dollars. The brunt of that falls on the taxpayer; hence it's appropriate for the state to mandate seatbelt use. Same goes for helmet laws for motorcycles. Hence liberals might want certain types of state control. But so would most conservatives--I don't think anyone's going to argue that it's a good idea to put guardrails on highways, or to grade them in such a manner as to reduce accident risk, or to have Coast Guard that you can call when your sailboat is sinking.

But that does not mean that liberals in general want to tax everyone at 90%! I certainly don't. I'm in favor of programs of demonstrated utility that help level the playing field, so that no matter who your parents were, you have a crack at the American Dream.

Under Bush's policies, we're going precisely the other way. Wealth inequality is increasing. Workers have never kept so little of their productive work for themselves. CEO's have not made so much relative to their workers since the era of the robber barons. You can say, "This is their money, they made it." Or you can recognize that they could not have made this money without the existence of a large, stable, happy middle class that can buy consumer goods. If we don't protect the existence of this middle class, and ensure adequate social and economic mobility, we drag ourselves down in the long term. Furthermore, many of these so-called "self-made" people have benefited from one or another government program along the way, e.g. the GI bill, which educated an entire generation of veterans, or social security, which freed people of the burden of caring for their parents, so they could get out in the marketplace.

Land grants created the first U.S. middle class--farmers. Think about that--a several trillion dollar (in today's money) giveaway of land to people willing to settle and farm it. That's the largest welfare program in history, and it was hugely successful. After that, tariffs against foreign goods kept the middle class alive, along with unionization, and finally redistributive taxation. With globalization, tariffs are disappearing (as they should--economies run much better without them), and unions have been fatally weakened (remember--the weekend was created by union agitation--it wasn't the robber barons' idea!). This leaves us with only redistributive taxation as a way to ensure the middle class's continued existence. I don't like it either, but take your pick--redistribute wealth or head in the direction of a country like Brazil, where a tiny few own nearly everything, and the masses have little.

Another way of looking at taxes is to compare the tax rates on earned and unearned wealth. Right now unearned wealth is taxed at a lower rate than earned. That's not fair to people who actually depend on a paycheck, versus those who inherited the manor and trust fund from their parents (and I know quite a few of the latter type, here in Cambridge and at Harvard).

Mariner.
 
Land grants created the first U.S. middle class--farmers. Think about that--a several trillion dollar (in today's money) giveaway of land to people willing to settle and farm it. That's the largest welfare program in history, and it was hugely successful.

They just loaned it. Now they are taking it back because people can't afford it. anymore.
 
musicman said:
Many a sad truth spoken in jest. You nailed this one!

Many an acre (thousands) in South Dakota that was cleared, settled, plowed,cultivated and even tamed by my relatives have been reclaimed by the government. A fine howdy-do for feeding America and much of the rest of the world. So it goes--they had a good life. They just couldn't pass it on. Good thing values can be.
 
dilloduck said:
Many an acre (thousands) in South Dakota that was cleared, settled, plowed,cultivated and even tamed by my relatives have been reclaimed by the government. A fine howdy-do for feeding America and much of the rest of the world. So it goes--they had a good life. They just couldn't pass it on. Good thing values can be.

The hardy, self-reliant frontier American has become an echo of the distant past. Sometimes I wonder if the march of government CAN be stopped.
 
musicman said:
Well, in the first place, let's disabuse ourselves of Volcker's disingenuous assertion that:



Equality of dispersion does not necessarily follow equality of opportunity; this is a fundamental truth of human nature. Ignoring that truth is the fundamental flaw of socialism - which brings me to my next point:

Wealth is not a zero/sum game; i.e., the reason I lack money is not because Bill Gates HAS it. His wealth does not constitute theft from me. This is what makes the politics of envy such a hateful game. It's practitioners actually gain nothing - apart from the spiteful satisfaction of seeing the successful suffer. I guess that's enough for some people. Sad.

Agree with everything musicman just said.

That's a command.
 
musicman said:
The hardy, self-reliant frontier American has become an echo of the distant past. Sometimes I wonder if the march of government CAN be stopped.

I'm beginning to doubt it. Self-reliance seems to only come to people who have been forced to do it and then they become aware of the POWER of it.
 
dilloduck said:
I'm beginning to doubt it. Self-reliance seems to only come to people who have been forced to do it and then they become aware of the POWER of it.

I think a lot of it has to do with the way we live our everyday lives. We don't grasp the nature of the gift our founders gave us. I'm not a young guy, dillo, and I'm almost ashamed to tell you how little I knew about our electoral process before the 2000 presidential election. Our Constitution was created to free us from the tyranny of a remote central government - to promote self-reliance - and I had not a clue. And I'm a lifelong conservative! Makes you shudder to think of the poor kids being churned out by our modern-day educational system, doesn't it?
 
musicman said:
I think a lot of it has to do with the way we live our everyday lives. We don't grasp the nature of the gift our founders gave us. I'm not a young guy, dillo, and I'm almost ashamed to tell you how little I knew about our electoral process before the 2000 presidential election. Our Constitution was created to free us from the tyranny of a remote central government - to promote self-reliance - and I had not a clue. And I'm a lifelong conservative! Makes you shudder to think of the poor kids being churned out by our modern-day educational system, doesn't it?

I bought the secret lies of my "education" that there were other things you could depend on. They have a strange way of allowing you to believe that things are other than what they are. Falling on my face was the best lesson I ever had. I ain't no spring chicken either but I like acting like one from time to time. :banana:
 
Mariner said:
Land grants created the first U.S. middle class--farmers. Think about that--a several trillion dollar (in today's money) giveaway of land to people willing to settle and farm it. That's the largest welfare program in history,

Welfare program? Do you really believe that was meant to be welfare? No, it was a means by which the government used its holdings to create a larger economy and become more prodominate in the world.
 
Mariner said:
thread, I'm bothered by the assumption that liberalism means wanting to spend unnecessarily.

The real question, is how much we want government to do, versus how much we'd rather do for ourselves.

Take Powerman's initial example of "stupid" seat-belt laws.

Seat belt laws keep people from losing control of their vehicles, and reduce their and others' rate of injury. That's not a purely personal issue, since the average head injury, for example, costs $500,000 to treat, and chronic head injury can easily cost several million dollars. The brunt of that falls on the taxpayer; hence it's appropriate for the state to mandate seatbelt use. Same goes for helmet laws for motorcycles. Hence liberals might want certain types of state control. But so would most conservatives--I don't think anyone's going to argue that it's a good idea to put guardrails on highways, or to grade them in such a manner as to reduce accident risk, or to have Coast Guard that you can call when your sailboat is sinking.

But that does not mean that liberals in general want to tax everyone at 90%! I certainly don't. I'm in favor of programs of demonstrated utility that help level the playing field, so that no matter who your parents were, you have a crack at the American Dream.
Under Bush's policies, we're going precisely the other way. Wealth inequality is increasing. Workers have never kept so little of their productive work for themselves. CEO's have not made so much relative to their workers since the era of the robber barons. You can say, "This is their money, they made it." Or you can recognize that they could not have made this money without the existence of a large, stable, happy middle class that can buy consumer goods. If we don't protect the existence of this middle class, and ensure adequate social and economic mobility, we drag ourselves down in the long term. Furthermore, many of these so-called "self-made" people have benefited from one or another government program along the way, e.g. the GI bill, which educated an entire generation of veterans, or social security, which freed people of the burden of caring for their parents, so they could get out in the marketplace.

Land grants created the first U.S. middle class--farmers. Think about that--a several trillion dollar (in today's money) giveaway of land to people willing to settle and farm it. That's the largest welfare program in history, and it was hugely successful. After that, tariffs against foreign goods kept the middle class alive, along with unionization, and finally redistributive taxation. With globalization, tariffs are disappearing (as they should--economies run much better without them), and unions have been fatally weakened (remember--the weekend was created by union agitation--it wasn't the robber barons' idea!). This leaves us with only redistributive taxation as a way to ensure the middle class's continued existence. I don't like it either, but take your pick--redistribute wealth or head in the direction of a country like Brazil, where a tiny few own nearly everything, and the masses have little.

Another way of looking at taxes is to compare the tax rates on earned and unearned wealth. Right now unearned wealth is taxed at a lower rate than earned. That's not fair to people who actually depend on a paycheck, versus those who inherited the manor and trust fund from their parents (and I know quite a few of the latter type, here in Cambridge and at Harvard).

Mariner.

Socialism at its finest.

It isn't fair to tax someone on an estate that has ALREADY been taxed, and punish beneficiaries for someone dying. People save all their lives to leave something for their children and the bureaucracy has to stick its fingers in it.

Inheritance is irrelevant to people who actually depend on a paycheck unless it is THEY who are inheriting. Otherwise, it's none of their damned business. That's just player-hating.
 
I hate that stupid leveling the playing field diatribe.


Why not just come out and say what you really want?

I'll give you a start.

Communism
 
Dr Grump said:
Death taxes are daylight robbery period...

You know some GOP operative made up the term, right? :funnyface

Opponents of the transfer tax refer to these taxes cumulatively as "death taxes". This term is technically inaccurate because the tax is not levied on the "amount of the taxpayer's death," but rather on the amount of the taxpayer's inter-generational transfers. The term "death tax" was invented by Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant. (He was interviewed on PBS's Frontline [9])

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States

What about replacing "global warming" with "climate change?"

What is the difference? It is climate change. Some people call it global warming; some people call it climate change. What is the difference?

Look, for years, political people and lawyers -- who, by the way, are the worst communicators -- used the phrase "estate tax." And for years they couldn't eliminate it. The public wouldn't support it because the word "estate" sounds wealthy. Someone like me comes around and realizes that it's not an estate tax, it's a death tax, because you're taxed at death. And suddenly something that isn't viable achieves the support of 75 percent of the American people. It's the same tax, but nobody really knows what an estate is. But they certainly know what it means to be taxed when you die. I argue that is a clarification; that's not an obfuscation

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/luntz.html
 
jillian said:


Thank you for clarifying, jillian. Phrases like "estate tax" are meant to mislead the public by making them think thats something only rich people have. A death tax is something everyone can understand. You pay taxes on the money you transfer to your family when you die.

Phrases like "global warming" are meant to scare the public into thinking there is a crisis that needs to be adverted through action. "Climate change" is the accurate description of something that can not be controlled by human behavior.
 
jillian said:
Piss up a rope, dear. :)

I said they received a disproportionate BENEFIT from the tax cuts. What did you get back? $200? $400? How much do you think Dick Cheney saved off his last tax bill?

I would guess that you aren't an economist. Vice President Cheney paid more in taxes this year than you are likely to pay in your lifetime.....is that what you call fair? You sound jealous of people who have achieved wealth yet we never hear the questioning of how much Ted Kennedy paid this year. How about John Kerry Heinze? How much did the Clintons pay. What did they give to charity?
 
To respond to the OP, I would disagree that the GOP has lost all of its balls. There is one GOP caucus, called the Republican Study Committee (http://www.house.gov/pence/rsc/), which is conservative at its core, and which is currently trying to save the House GOP from falling on its face. Those representatives should be supported. Also, as I've said on here before, there are a number of representatives endorsed by the Club for Growth (http://www.clubforgrowth.org/), which is a small-government PAC.

I won't support any GOP politician who's not either a member of the RSC or endorsed by CFG. They are some of the last bastions of conservatism. And I'm sure as hell not giving to the RNC, NRSC, or the NRCC.
 
Mariner said:
thread, I'm bothered by the assumption that liberalism means wanting to spend unnecessarily.

The real question, is how much we want government to do, versus how much we'd rather do for ourselves.

Take Powerman's initial example of "stupid" seat-belt laws.

Seat belt laws keep people from losing control of their vehicles, and reduce their and others' rate of injury. That's not a purely personal issue, since the average head injury, for example, costs $500,000 to treat, and chronic head injury can easily cost several million dollars. The brunt of that falls on the taxpayer; hence it's appropriate for the state to mandate seatbelt use. Same goes for helmet laws for motorcycles. Hence liberals might want certain types of state control.

How do seat belts keep people from losing control of their vehicles?

I wear a seat belt, not because the state has created a law but because it is a good idea. I take responsibility for myself. Why is it that I or anybody else be force to finacial support someone who makes poor choices, ie not wear seltbelts, helments or have proper insurance?
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top