Sen. Bernie Sanders introduces Estate Tax bill, commentary

[Genx87]

Is it ? How about an attempt to keep the Ruling Class from becoming even more powerful than they already are (not that it is actually effective)? If it was really class warfare they'd take it all.

Ill ask this again. You really believe a tax that takes 30 billion out of 14 trillion dollar economy is preventing a ruling class? I have ocean front property in Nebraska I want to sell you. But I suspect you already know it doesnt. If it doesnt work then why bother at all?

 

[Red Dawn]

Ill ask this again. You really believe a tax that takes 30 billion out of 14 trillion dollar economy is preventing a ruling class? I have ocean front property in Nebraska I want to sell you. But I suspect you already know it doesnt. If it doesnt work then why bother at all?

No I don't, if it did it wouldn't be allowed.I also don't believe that it's an onerous tax and that it really doesn't hurt those who have to pay it.

 

[Craig234]

The money has already been taxed. There is no such thing as tax free. If there are tax-deferred assets included in an estate, they still get taxed when the recipient of the estate actually tries to get them. Tax free is a bunch of crap. What the dems want to do is tax everything multiple times.

Why is that relevant? What if it was 90%? 80%? 70%? 99.999%? It makes no difference. Either it is fair to double tax something and take it from the people who earned it, or it is not.

Evade? That's not evading anything: every group tries to get it's tax burden lowered, those folks are no different. This is class warfare and class envy at it's worst.

First, get a clue - things are always taxed repeatedly, at least except when they go into long-term untaxed investments by the rich. As they flow through the economy, consumer to business to worker/consumer to business to worker/consumer over and over, they're retaxed constantly. Add in sales tax, property tax that 'retaxes' money simply for the year changing.

That's the point of taxes - drain off the money needed to pay for the government, despite the fact it should be zero if you righties just fixed it, and do it in the 'best' ways they can.

And the Estate Tax is the best tax there is.

Not one righty has put up an answer to the questionI asked more than once:

Name who you want to tax instead for the same money the estate tax would take, who is more 'deserving' to be 'punished' and pay the tax.

Do you want to have the average worker pay more in his taxes to let the estate not get taxed? Why is that a good idea? Do you want to pay more taxes to make up for them?

Class warfare at its worst?

Let me announce if I haven't yet, Craig's axiom on economy jealousy. If you baselessly accuse someone who is not ultra rich who wants to pass policies in the interests of those who are not ultra rich of 'jealousy', you are discredited and lose the discussion. That's such a tired, wrongheaded bit of propaganda, it gets Godwin's Law treatment.

If you want class warfare at its worst, try the radical policies since Reagan that have shifted American's fairer economic distribution since FDR so that the bottom 80% get little after inflation while the very rich get several hundred percent increases - or more. Those policies are the 'worst of class warfare'. The Estate Tax - which worked well for several decades - is a great policy for keeping America, America, and not as much of an oligarchy.

 

[Red Dawn]

The Estate Tax - which worked well for several decades - is a great policy for keeping America, America, and not as much of an oligarchy.

Except for it really hasn't achieved that. It actually benefits the Super Wealthy by placating the masses into thinking that all are on a level playing field.

 

[Craig234]

Except for it really hasn't achieved that. It actually benefits the Super Wealthy by placating the masses into thing that all are on a level playing field.

It isn't enough to achieve that, but it helps, and is worth doing that far outweighs any 'placating' effect you imagine, that's a non-issue.

What really misleads many Americans to not be fighting the class war they're losing, as Warren Buffet says, is not 'Estate Tax placating', but right-wing propaganda.

All the right-wing media about how much more taxes the rich pay than their fair share, but not ever once discussing how the rich have shifted their 'share' the last 30 years.

 

[Red Dawn]

It isn't enough to achieve that, but it helps, and is worth doing that far outweighs any 'placating' effect you imagine, that's a non-issue.

What really misleads many Americans to not be fighting the class war they're losing, as Warren Buffet says, is not 'Estate Tax placating', but right-wing propaganda.

All the right-wing media about how much more taxes the rich pay than their fair share, but not ever once discussing how the rich have shifted their 'share' the last 30 years.

Well the Left Wing is ruled by the same class the rules the Right. You want to talk about Oligarchies and the Ruling Class you have to look no further than the Kennedy's

 

[CycloWizard]

No, you're a clueless bastard who thinks civilization has no cost, and the simplistic ideology to match it.

In your little world, you don't need worker safety laws - workers can just work somewhere else. You don't need drug safety laws, consumers can just buy from another company. You don't need doctor certification, people can just go to another doctor. You don't need FAA regulations, people can just on another airline.

You sound like - you can backpedal if you want to say this is not correct - you have the simplistic Libertarian mentality that simply has no place in the real world.

I'm for freedom for all citizens - political and economic, opportunity, and for more people doing well - a strong middle class - over oligarchy. You're not, whether you know it or not.

How do you know what I think about all of these things? You have simply assumed that I follow an extreme form of one ideology because it's easy for you to argue against it, a technique also known as a strawman. You saved it all up to post it in here rather than commenting on any particular point that I make in any other thread because you know you have little chance of making a rational argument in favor of your feel-good ideology in which the government is the savior of mankind. You want me to pay, pay, and pay some more for the huge contributions society makes to my life, then keep paying even after I'm dead (but only if I'm in the top 0.3%, otherwise I magically don't owe society this debt). You favor arbitrary rules to logical ones because you think it's unfair that some people are capable of earning more than others. You think that taking money from dead people and handing it to the government is a form of economic freedom? Really? Who are you trying to kid? The only person here you might be fooling is yourself.

edit: I'll also add that having a complicated ideology which you think is sophisticated and intellectual does not mean that it's good for anything. If you want to give people opportunity but not the rewards for their risks, then you are not really giving them that opportunity. I can let you invest in the stock market for free, but if I take 50% of what you earn when things go well, I'm not giving you anything - I'm taking.

 

[CycloWizard]

Lameness. $3.5M net worth isn't really rich by modern standards at all, and should satisfy middle class notions of providing for their children.

It's less than 1/1000 of what the top earning hedge fund manager made in 2009, which was $4B....

Wrap your head around the idea that America's wealthiest are rich in ways and amounts that the rest of us can't even comprehend. If a $1B estate paid 55% in taxes, there's still $450M+ left for the heirs... If there were 10 heirs, that's still an average of $45M in free money for each one.

*Free Money*, Get it? Money they didn't earn, never worked for, provided by accident of birth. 20X the total sum earned by an average american working for 50 years.

Guess who's financed the campaign to abolish the "death tax"? People who already have their own free money, and lots of it.

So, hypothetically speaking, if I bought land and it had $1 billion in buried pirate treasure underground that I stumbled across while digging to build a new deck on my house, the government should get a huge chunk of it because I did nothing to earn it?

 

[Craig234]

Well the Left Wing is ruled by the same class the rules the Right. You want to talk about Oligarchies and the Ruling Class you have to look no further than the Kennedy's

No, it's not. That's ignorance.

Let's talk about the Kennedys, not that an anedotal example of one family proves what hundreds of millions of people are like, as your wrong logic suggests.

You don't even get, obviously, that simply being rich (or poor) does not make a person someone who is out to get all they can for their class - you have Warren Buffets and other rich people who advocate that policies are too good to their class, and you have poor people who fall for right-wing propaganda and advocate policies to let the rich have more of their money.

But on the Kennedys, they are mainly the story of one ambitious man, Joe Kennedy, who was quite talented in making money in a number of industries - from banking where he was the youngest bank president in the country at 25, to the stock market, to the movie industry, to real estate and more.

But what did he do with the wealth? He raised children and taught them the importance of public service, and gave us 3 of the greatest public servants while the fourth, Joe Kennedy Jr., was killed volunteering for dangerous duty after volunteering for three tours of duty as a bomber pilot that was also very dangerous in WWII.

His family did not continue to pursue wealth the way Joe had - the sons each put the money in the trusts appropriate for politicians, and earned a pittance to serve the nation in politics, not to enrich the family. They made real financial sacrifices to do so, just as a figure like Robert McNamara did, at the request of John Kennedy, only months after becoming the President of Ford card company, the first president of the company not named 'Ford'. He could have made a fortune staying in the private sector.

Even Joe Kennedy - after making a lot of money in the stock market under the rules allowed at the time - agreed to shut down the abuses he knew well, and became the nation's first SEC Commissioner and helped put a stop to many of the abuses he had profited from or seen, for the good of the country.

The Kennedys are a great example of the liberals - and Joe Kennedy was only in a very broad sense a liberal, he was really a conservative Democrat in many ways - not using the government to enrich their class the way Republicans use government for the benefit of the rich. A good counterexample is the Bush dynasty, read a book like the one by Kevin Phillips, Nixon's campaign strategist who left the Republican party over the Bushes coming to power as it became a party for the rich.

The Bushes are a much better example of 'crony capitalism', all the way with abusing the governmental power they had for everything from preventing the criminal prosecution of George for insider trading, to moving George to the head of the list for a safe spot in the Texas National Guard, to steering state money corruptly to the guy who got him that spot when he became governor, with the help of a woman (Harriet Miers) he rewarded with top government appointment (and appointment to the Supreme Court), and so on.

I've said many times the Democratic Party has a war between its corporatists and its progressives, so you can find times they do the wrong thing, but that's far from your claim.

 

[Red Dawn]

So, hypothetically speaking, if I bought land and it had $1 billion in buried pirate treasure underground that I stumbled across while digging to build a new deck on my house, the government should get a huge chunk of it because I did nothing to earn it?

AFAIK you'd have to pay taxes on it. ARRRGH!

 

[CycloWizard]

Would you prefer that your children are taxed on their inheritance as if it were income, after you died? Because it is income to them. The estate tax should really be looked at as a relief to your children from having to pay full income tax on the whole estate.

My children will never be as bad at math as you are. 55% off the top is much more than any income tax they would pay on it unless, God forbid, Craig is elected president. Then, the 55% will be the least of their worries because the marginal tax rate for anyone earning over minimum wage will probably approach 150%. Also, if I already paid income tax on it, why are you so eager to tax it again? Greedy bastard.

 

[Craig234]

So, hypothetically speaking, if I bought land and it had $1 billion in buried pirate treasure underground that I stumbled across while digging to build a new deck on my house, the government should get a huge chunk of it because I did nothing to earn it?

Doesn't happen very often (never) does it, now, but you are asking in principle; and yes, in principle, better to tax your 'unearned' new income, than higher taxes on Joe Worker.

 

[Craig234]

My children will never be as bad at math as you are. 55% off the top is much more than any income tax they would pay on it unless, God forbid, Craig is elected president. Then, the 55% will be the least of their worries because the marginal tax rate for anyone earning over minimum wage will probably approach 150%.

Ah, the proof someone has nothing but lies for their position, when all they can offer is to lie about the other side with a straw man.

 

[CycloWizard]

Doesn't happen very often (never) does it, now, but you are asking in principle; and yes, in principle, better to tax your 'unearned' new income, than higher taxes on Joe Worker.

Here's a better idea: quit growing your damned government so big that you have to take all my money to pay for your own stupidity.

 

[CycloWizard]

Ah, the proof someone has nothing but lies for their position, when all they can offer is to lie about the other side with a straw man.

You simple bastard, you are just unwilling to admit that your plan to wipe every butt in the US will cost more than the GDP. See how fun it is when I make up positions for you? Maybe you won't be so eager to do so for me in the future, although mine is probably a little closer to reality than the crap you posted earlier.

 

[Red Dawn]

Here's a better idea: quit growing your damned government so big that you have to take all my money to pay for your own stupidity.

Then quit voting for Politicians that expand government and get us into foreign wars so they can pad their own pockets or those of their peers.

To do that you would have to find someone that's not from either party to vote for. Until then we do have to pay for it.

 

[Craig234]

How do you know what I think about all of these things? You have simply assumed that I follow an extreme form of one ideology because it's easy for you to argue against it, a technique also known as a strawman.

Irony of the month award.

You saved it all up to post it in here rather than commenting on any particular point that I make in any other thread because you know you have little chance of making a rational argument in favor of your feel-good ideology in which the government is the savior of mankind.

As you do exactly what you just wrongly accused.

You want me to pay, pay, and pay some more for the huge contributions society makes to my life, then keep paying even after I'm dead (but only if I'm in the top 0.3%, otherwise I magically don't owe society this debt). You favor arbitrary rules to logical ones because you think it's unfair that some people are capable of earning more than others.

Look, you got the award, you don't need to keep it up.

You think that taking money from dead people and handing it to the government is a form of economic freedom? Really? Who are you trying to kid? The only person here you might be fooling is yourself.

Yes, it is. For just a couple ways, it lessens the tax burden on the productive workers of society; second, it allows the economy to be more a meritocracy than dynastic wealth.

Rather than a few families smothering the economy owning it, more people can have opportunity.

 

[CycloWizard]

Then quit voting for Politicians that expand government and get us into foreign wars so they can pad their own pockets or those of their peers.

To do that you would have to find someone that's not from either party to vote for. Until then we do have to pay for it.

I haven't had anyone to vote for in the last two elections, and I won't pay for their reckless policies. That's why I have a government job now and am typing this from my couch during the workday. I am Craig's big government wet dream in all of its glorious reality.

 

[CycloWizard]

Irony of the month award.

As you do exactly what you just wrongly accused.

I was doing it for the irony, which was lost on you because you are incapable of seeing the ridiculousness of what you're saying. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said them. That's the difference between us.

Yes, it is. For just a couple ways, it lessens the tax burden on the productive workers of society; second, it allows the economy to be more a meritocracy than dynastic wealth.

Rather than a few families smothering the economy owning it, more people can have opportunity.

So it's a bait and switch in which people take risks and live their lives as productive citizens, only for you to swoop down and take what they earned after they die? It's not a real opportunity if you take the rewards away after they're earned.

 

[Craig234]

I was doing it for the irony, which was lost on you because you are incapable of seeing the ridiculousness of what you're saying. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said them. That's the difference between us.

I'll accept your statement of intent, while you get no credit for the rest of your mistakes, but how are we to know when Sarah Palin says something ridiculous for 'irony'?

So it's a bait and switch in which people take risks and live their lives as productive citizens, only for you to swoop down and take what they earned after they die? It's not a real opportunity if you take the rewards away after they're earned.

It's a real opportunity for the reasons I said, lowering other people's taxes, and replacing dynasty with meritocracy and more opportunity for others.

Tell me, in a Latin American country where a small number of families own 95% of the land and the businesses, how much opportunity is there for others? An estate tax can help.

You still haven't answered my question, name the people in the US who you think should have their taxes raised as more deserving for 'punishment' to replace the estate tax.

 

[Red Dawn]

I was doing it for the irony, which was lost on you because you are incapable of seeing the ridiculousness of what you're saying. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said them. That's the difference between us.

So it's a bait and switch in which people take risks and live their lives as productive citizens, only for you to swoop down and take what they earned after they die? It's not a real opportunity if you take the rewards away after they're earned.

If it was actually taking away their rewards, or more to the point, the rewards of their heirs who are being rewarded for their parents productivity and death. The thing is they are still being greatly rewarded.

 

[Craig234]

I haven't had anyone to vote for in the last two elections, and I won't pay for their reckless policies. That's why I have a government job now and am typing this from my couch during the workday. I am Craig's big government wet dream in all of its glorious reality.

Hardly - you sound more like a hypocrite, and if you are taken at face value rather than with 'irony', government waste that we liberals like to cut.

 

[PokerGuy]

Is it ? How about an attempt to keep the Ruling Class from becoming even more powerful than they already are (not that it is actually effective)? If it was really class warfare they'd take it all.

If it was truly an attempt to 'fix' the problem of a ruling class developing, they wouldn't be doing it by messing with a 30 billion tax that is irrelevant in the grand scheme. This is about whipping up the "tax the rich!" sentiment and getting the people used to the class warfare mentality.

 

[Red Dawn]

Hardly - you sound more like a hypocrite, and if you are taken at face value rather than with 'irony', government waste that we liberals like to cut.

Such as?

 

[Sinsear]

Well the Left Wing is ruled by the same class the rules the Right. You want to talk about Oligarchies and the Ruling Class you have to look no further than the Kennedy's

It's unbelievable how he just tried to rationalize the Kennedy's as not being a part of this. Craig is the ultimate partisan tool.