Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'

[Fern]

I smell raw pwnage.

😉

Fern

 

[ProfJohn]

Fair enough, was just curious about your take on why the GOP has tried to attach an amendment repealing the entire estate tax to a relatively small piece of legislation aimed at stimulating small business.

Because estate taxes hit small businesses the worse.

Say you own a chain of pizza places and they are worth $1 million although you only make about $100,000 a year.

Then you die and your family is hit with a $345,800 tax bill. How do they pay it? They sell the business because they don't have that kind of money laying around.

 

[lsquare]

Good for you - but let me remind you of a point I've made.

'Politicians have to LOOK good to the voters, and DO good for the donors'.

You say they have 'strayed from their principles'. Understand the difference between 'principles', and campaign marketing.

Do you say 'the problem with the Snake Oil Salesman is he strayed away from his principles to give a potion that cures many ales'?

The Republican Party is filled with people who think it's all about loving and protecting your country, anti-communism, anti-waste, family, and other good, want your flag 'values'.

They can't get that the Republican party has an agenda, and that because they still need to get elected, they have to get people to vote for them by having a sales pitch.

I've told the story how out the county fair, their were booths for the Republican and Democratic party. Each had flags and little cards with the party 'values' to recruit.

The funny thing is, if you care about people, your country, good government - why, you are a Democrat then, sign up.

On the other hand, if you care about your country, a strong country, good government - why, you are a Republican, sign up.

Wait a second, this is a trick test, isn't it. It's not designed to help you select a party - it's designed to tell almost everyone they are that part, and make you want to vote for it.

That marketing has about as much to do with the party agenda (especially for Republicans IMO) as the Snake Oil Saleman's list of curing things has to do with his.

People who should be up in arms voting against a party doing terrible things should understand the 'principles' are lies to get votes largely, not 'they violated their principles'.

What do their actions suggest their agenda is? Well, look who the donors are, for one things, and look who benefits from their policies.

Take Bush - though he's not alone - his top priority was to further shift wealth to the top when wealth was ALREADY flowing almost entirely to the top with top-weighted tax cuts.

#1 priority for the country - that was it. Increase the deficit paid for by future Americans to hand yet more cash to the few now.

And they have 'sales campaigns' for these bills - put some peanuts in it for poor Americans so they can sell it misleadingly as 'a tax cut for everyone'. It worked.

Oh, they had to mislead on some things - like they couldn't make them permanent to avoid certain things that deal with the deficits - so they made them 10 years, expecting that whoever was in office would be politically forced to renew them, but helping with the numbers needed to sell them at the time.

What was their second priority? In their agenda that on 100 issues said 'less for average Americans', they were suddenly Santa Clause on prescription medicine.

Why was that? It's pretty obvious.

One, political strategists knew that the political campaigning was helped by giving them something to campaign on that sounded good to help people 'expanded Medicare drugs!'

They knew they could get away with murder in the program because most voters pay little attention, and they took advantage. The actual policy *increased* many seniors' costs.

But there was one key provision that exposes their agenda - and their agenda was that the drug industry was their biggest donor.

It was a buried sentence saying drug prices could not be negotiates. Unlike other government programs with big discounts - like the VA.

This had only one reason - to hugely inflate the drug prices from taxpayers paid to their big donors, the drug companies. The clause increased profits hundreds of billions.

Note that's not 'the profits were hundreds of billions'. The program would be profitable with the discounts. It made them MORE profitable, a 'windfall' profit it was called.

That worked too. And it wasn't them 'straying from their principles', a least not the leadership - some Republican members to their credit opposed the corrupt program.

Although many of those opponents switched when offered 'incentives', enough to barely pass the bad bill.

That's not straying - their agenda is 'get power to help their donors, and have a sales campaign to get votes that has a lot of pictures of waving flags'.

You understand that the sales pitch and the policies are not the same, but you still call it 'straying from their principles'.

And that means you are still pretty sold on the snake oil. 'But the next guy's snake oil, this guy strayed from principles'.

This post is long enough to make that point, not to get into any details about Dems and Repubs, another topic.

Save234

I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously both political parties have special interest groups lobbying for certain legislations and preferential treatment. I understand that it's not all black and white. However, for anyone to to simply put all the blame on America's woes on Obama is just simply ridiculous. Let's not forget that the Bush Administration also enacted stimulus spending legislations. What I really want to see (regardless of who controls the gov) is to rein in on the deficit. Spending is getting out of control and the country can ill afford another round of tax cuts without it being paid for.

 

[CallMeJoe]

Because estate taxes hit small businesses the worse.
Say you own a chain of pizza places and they are worth $1 million although you only make about $100,000 a year.
Then you die and your family is hit with a $345,800 tax bill. How do they pay it? They sell the business because they don't have that kind of money laying around.

Can you say "exemption"? In your example, no estate tax would be due at all.

 

[Thump553]

Because estate taxes hit small businesses the worse.

Say you own a chain of pizza places and they are worth $1 million although you only make about $100,000 a year.

Then you die and your family is hit with a $345,800 tax bill. How do they pay it? They sell the business because they don't have that kind of money laying around.

Your example is totally, and I mean TOTALLY, false. A $1,000,000 estate faces absolutely NO federal estate taxes-and hasn't for decades (since at least Reagan's day). Even when an estate approaches the threshold for possible application of federal estate tax, in nearly all cases a very simple estate plan can eliminate that possibility easily and very cheaply.

The fact of the matter is, if someone is giving you honest, un-politically distorted advice, most millionaires have to give estate planning little more than a passing thought as far as tax concerns go.

I wish pundits like you would keep from repeating absolute BS as the truth.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

He didn't seem to mention some of the destructive economic policies the Republicans advocated:

• Foreign Outsourcing
• H-1B and L-1 visas
• Mass legal immigration and illegal immigration*

*The Republicans have supported amnesty for illegal aliens. Also, they haven't done anything to end illegal immigration or to reduce legal immigration. They're in the pocket of big business that likes the cheap labor.
​

 

[Jhhnn]

Your example is totally, and I mean TOTALLY, false. A $1,000,000 estate faces absolutely NO federal estate taxes-and hasn't for decades (since at least Reagan's day). Even when an estate approaches the threshold for possible application of federal estate tax, in nearly all cases a very simple estate plan can eliminate that possibility easily and very cheaply.

The fact of the matter is, if someone is giving you honest, un-politically distorted advice, most millionaires have to give estate planning little more than a passing thought as far as tax concerns go.

I wish pundits like you would keep from repeating absolute BS as the truth.

PJ knows that- he's just spreading right wing anti tax FUD. Maybe he's paid for his efforts...

 

[hal2kilo]

Because estate taxes hit small businesses the worse.

Say you own a chain of pizza places and they are worth $1 million although you only make about $100,000 a year.

Then you die and your family is hit with a $345,800 tax bill. How do they pay it? They sell the business because they don't have that kind of money laying around.

http://wills.about.com/od/understandingestatetaxes/a/estatetaxchart.htm

A simple google would have refuted your sock puppet marching orders.