US Politics

[Maximus]

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

[ryanm]

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

No, no it doesn't. The lack of an estate tax ensures wealth is kept and grown for the top 1-2% of income earners and opportunity is squandered for those below the poverty line.  I'm not keen on a society which has a small, shrinking class of trust fund babies with an increasingly greater share of the nation's wealth while we have a much larger, growing class of low-income earners with an increasingly smaller share of the nation's wealth.

[Tumbling Dice]

The socio-economic status of parents is going to impact on their children’s life chances, but then so is the intelligence, physical attractiveness and genes of parents. I don’t want to live in a socialist state where the family’s role in raising children is eroded, but at the same time if we want to live in a society which offers opportunity for all, then the state has to play an active role in mitigating inequalities, the extent of which will vary between societies.  The USA is a middle class society – perhaps more so than any other western society – and so as long as the middle classes, and those who aspire to be middle class, feel that they and their children benefit from the system then America will continue to be seen as the land of opportunity.  However, If this sense of opportunity – both for themselves and their children – is increasingly questioned, perhaps because of contemporary economic circumstances or because of the ever increasing cost of higher education*, then I don’t think rhetoric alone will be enough for any politician to persuade people that the USA is still the land of opportunity.  Therefore, US politicians need to be focused on the middle classes – regardless of ethnic group - and be highly sensitive to their concerns and anxieties if they want to win power.  I think Obama did this far more than Romney in the last presidential election, and is, in large part, the reason why Obama is still the President today despite the difficult economic circumstances. 

*I firmly believe that education is the key to social mobility, but the ever increasing cost of higher education in the US is going to act as a barrier to education and, by extension, social mobility.

[imaginary friend]

TD: up until Reagan got elected, the US government picked up, on average, about 80% of the cost of a college education. That's one of the reasons we had a top tax rate of about 75% at that point. Reagan and his merry band of aristocrat enablers chopped the living daylights out of that as one of the first steps in what has become a never-ending class war against the middle class and working poor in this country.

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

lolwtf - are you really going to equate the way they do it with the way we do?!

The US estate tax doesn't even apply to any estate worth less than $5 million. Does that sound like it's going to hurt minorities - or anyone else - trying to move up into the middle class?

[Tumbling Dice]

TD: up until Reagan got elected, the US government picked up, on average, about 80% of the cost of a college education. That's one of the reasons we had a top tax rate of about 75% at that point. Reagan and his merry band of aristocrat enablers chopped the living daylights out of that as one of the first steps in what has become a never-ending class war against the middle class and working poor in this country.

I’m definitely opposed to going back to punitively high levels of income tax like the 75% rate you mention.  The socialist government of France are introducing a 75% top rate of income tax and France’s wealthy and high earners are already relocating across the border to French speaking Belgium or across the Channel to the UK.  I don’t see how this is going to benefit French society.  That said I think Education should be one of the most heavily subsidized services in any society – and particularly wealthy ones like the USA or the UK – and that applies as much to higher education as to primary and high school education.  The future prosperity of an economy and the health of an open society depend on all its citizens having access to high quality education and training.  The reality is that the high cost of education, which has to be born by the student in the form of loans, is proving to be a disincentive for students from poorer backgrounds in attending university, and is probably a significant factor in the relatively high drop out rate.  Since the UK government effectively trebled fees for English students – though curiously not for Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish students – there has been a decline in university applications from English students – even after taking into account demographic changes – whilst there has not been a similar decline in applications from students from other parts of the UK.  I suspect that higher fees will not dissuade applications from students from affluent backgrounds, nor will they cause a decline in applications for the most prestigious courses, such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and law.  In the UK, these professions are becoming ever more elitist and self-recruiting and that has to be a cause for concern, though not as much as the elitist nature of politics.

[Tumbling Dice]

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

lolwtf - are you really going to equate the way they do it with the way we do?!

The US estate tax doesn't even apply to any estate worth less than $5 million. Does that sound like it's going to hurt minorities - or anyone else - trying to move up into the middle class?

This is a good example of how the Republicans are committed to defending the interests of the very wealthy to the detriment of the rest of society, and how they are responsible for making the US even more plutocratic.  Politicians would be out of touch with the middle classes if they proposed estate taxes on modest estates worth, say, one or two million, but certainly not by retaining estate taxes on such a tiny proportion of society, who are already growing richer and richer relative to the rest of society with each passing year.  The Republicans are basically trying to conflate the interests of the super-rich with the interests of the middle classes, but that tactic, I suspect, is not going to wash with the American people anymore, especially since the middle classes are facing a squeeze in real living standards and whose children are facing the prospect of lower living standards than the previous generation for the first time in a century or more. 

[Tumbling Dice]

Somebody needs to ram home to the Washington elite that compromise is not a dirty word if they’re going to avert the fiscal cliff which won’t benefit either party, let alone the people of the United States.  According to a recent YouGov poll:

”the most popular deficit-cutting option is an income tax increase, selected by more than 80 percent of participants. Relatively few respondents (35 percent), however, wanted to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire entirely. Instead, most respondents who favored higher taxes wanted taxes to return to Clinton-era levels for those making $250,000 or more (as Obama proposed before the election).

The second-place choice, favored by about two-thirds of respondents, cut non-defense discretionary spending by 1 percent annually for an entire decade. Respondents chose this option even though the survey made clear that it would limit government services.

Almost 64 percent of respondents favored reducing defense spending by 1 percent annually. Again, respondents chose this option in spite of a warning that this cut would harm military capabilities.”

[The Unknown Caller]

Somebody needs to ram home to the Washington elite that compromise is not a dirty word if they’re going to avert the fiscal cliff which won’t benefit either party, let alone the people of the United States.  According to a recent YouGov poll:

”the most popular deficit-cutting option is an income tax increase, selected by more than 80 percent of participants. Relatively few respondents (35 percent), however, wanted to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire entirely. Instead, most respondents who favored higher taxes wanted taxes to return to Clinton-era levels for those making $250,000 or more (as Obama proposed before the election).

The second-place choice, favored by about two-thirds of respondents, cut non-defense discretionary spending by 1 percent annually for an entire decade. Respondents chose this option even though the survey made clear that it would limit government services.

Almost 64 percent of respondents favored reducing defense spending by 1 percent annually. Again, respondents chose this option in spite of a warning that this cut would harm military capabilities.”

The Democrats are offering every single bit of that. This is not a bipartisan problem.

[Maximus]

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

lolwtf - are you really going to equate the way they do it with the way we do?!

The US estate tax doesn't even apply to any estate worth less than $5 million. Does that sound like it's going to hurt minorities - or anyone else - trying to move up into the middle class?

This is a good example of how the Republicans are committed to defending the interests of the very wealthy to the detriment of the rest of society, and how they are responsible for making the US even more plutocratic.  Politicians would be out of touch with the middle classes if they proposed estate taxes on modest estates worth, say, one or two million, but certainly not by retaining estate taxes on such a tiny proportion of society, who are already growing richer and richer relative to the rest of society with each passing year.  The Republicans are basically trying to conflate the interests of the super-rich with the interests of the middle classes, but that tactic, I suspect, is not going to wash with the American people anymore, especially since the middle classes are facing a squeeze in real living standards and whose children are facing the prospect of lower living standards than the previous generation for the first time in a century or more. 

Thanks to the dems the are the ones squeezing the MC

Back to the estate tax-- This where you guys are so wrong it is not even funny. An immigrant cones over he starts a business, ne passes it to his children, his children pass it on. Finally they have a thriving family business and a chance to build real wealth and the government takes it away. The estate tax hurts the very people who are trying to get into the upper classes. Building a business building wealth and passing it on is how class mobility is achieved.

TUC you talk about modest estates of 1 to 2 million dollars-- That isn't much. Lets talk about farms in the Midwest where land goes for 10,000 in acre. a 200 acre farm is nothing, it can't even support itself.
You  guys once again don't understand, who or what the middle class is, who is in the middle class and how the policies of the DEMS hurt social mobility, hold down minorities. The one way to build generational wealth is inheritance.
Yes it gives an advantage to the wealthy even if you raised it to 80% they can beat it through trusts, living wills etc--that is something very hard for middle class families to do. The inheritance tax only punishes middle class families and minority families trying to build generational wealth.
BTW when did the progressives start caring about the middle class, they never have and never will

[Maximus]

The republican party is the actual party of equal opportunity, however not equal results ( a meritocracy)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, are you serious?! They've been trying to kill the estate tax forever, so their heirs will always start life miles ahead of the people they try to sell the "meritocracy" myth to.

An estate tax hurts minorities trying to get into the middle class. It prevents families from acquiring wealth and passing it on. That is how wealth has been built in the past among Irish, Italian and German immigrants.

No, no it doesn't. The lack of an estate tax ensures wealth is kept and grown for the top 1-2% of income earners and opportunity is squandered for those below the poverty line.  I'm not keen on a society which has a small, shrinking class of trust fund babies with an increasingly greater share of the nation's wealth while we have a much larger, growing class of low-income earners with an increasingly smaller share of the nation's wealth.

Don't you get it--raise the estate tax to 90% and people like Romney still won't pay a dime. They will put there funds into a living trust which is treated as living entity (for legal purposes) and taxed at very low levels.

The estate tax punishes people trying to get into the upper class, it punishes immigrant businesses and so forth--if anything it is designed to keep the non WASP's out of the upper class.

Being Rich
 Rich is a current state of being that can happen overnight. For example: lottery winners, new found celebrities and even high payed professions such as doctors or lawyers belong in the category of rich. They have quite a bit of money, but only have that money because of one source. Becoming rich can happen in an instant, but at the same time it can disappear in an instant.
 
Being Wealthy
 Wealth is being rich, but being rich through ownership of assets. Wealthy people don’t rely on their job, one particular asset, or even their natural talents. Wealthy people own assets and if you took away their job (if they have one) they wouldn’t be poor. If you took away the income stream from a rich person, they would quickly become poor. There’s a huge difference here.
 
In the most basic of terms rich people are not financially free while wealthy people are.

Chris Rock said it best:

Shaq is rich; the white man that signs his check is wealthy.  Here you go Shaq, go buy yourself a bouncing car. Bling-Bling . . . . I ain’t talking bout Oprah, I’m talking about Bill Gates. OK!.  If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah’s money, he would jump out a …window.  I’m not talking about rich, I’m talking about wealthy—Chris Rock

God forbid some brown people got wealthy... We can't have that! Because drugs come from brown countries. We can't have no wealthy brown people! There are no wealthy black or brown people in America.
 
Wealth will set us f****** free, okay? 'Cause wealth is empowering, wealth can uplift communities from poverty, okay? A white man gets wealthy, he builds Wal-Marts and makes other white people have some ************ money..  Chris Rock

The estate tax is detrimental to building generational wealth.

But that's the problem with DEMS they think it is the role of the government to pick winners an losers--it is the governments job to raise communities out of poverty--well you have been failing--what is the definition of insanity?


 

[Tumbling Dice]

But according to Imaginary Friend, the estate tax only applies to estates worth over $5 Million.  The vast majority of the middle classes (voters) don’t have a net worth of $5 million anyway.  So going into bat for the tiny elite isn’t going to win many votes for Republicans.  And even with estate taxes, most of the wealth is kept intact and passed on to the beneficiaries.  Something must be wrong with American society if, as TUC contends, the USA has the lowest level of social class mobility in western societies and has had for many years.  The increasing cost of education is only going to make matters worse.  Something needs to change.  The richest in the USA are getting richer and richer relative to the rest of society with each passing year, despite the existence of estate taxes.  Abolishing estate taxes for the very wealthy is going to increase that gap and, more importantly, deprive the state of much needed revenue in these economically challenging times.  Also, there’s no real evidence that suggests the estate tax discourages enterprise or investment.  Politicians should be focused on helping people who aspire to be middle class and those who are already middle class, rather than worrying about helping the relatively few middle class people join the ranks of the upper class.  The USA is a MIDDLE CLASS society.  Republicans can ignore all this but they’re the ones who are going suffer electorally as a result if they do.

[Maximus]

a 5 Million dollar estate isn't even the average worth of a family farm in Iowa.  Most small businesses are worth more than 5 million.

The wealthy can easily avoid any estate tax, it doesn't hurt them.

The Middle class supported the Republican party, there polices help the middle class. Romney won the middle class. It was the near lock step minorty vote that gave obama the win

$50,000 -$100,000 (the Middle class) Romney 53%  http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls


and yes there is plenty of evidence that an estate tax prevents generational wealth.

[Maximus]

The Obama administration has proposed returning the estate tax to its 2009 level, with a $3.5 million exemption and a 45 percent rate on assets that exceed that amount.  Not 5M (the 5M expires this year) in 2013 it starts at 1M http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2012/12/28/how-the-estate-tax-will-play-out-in-2013/

5M man IF I wish check out the 2013 rates

Critics say that the tax essentially taxes people twice, hits those who put the most amount of money back into the economy and could have a crippling affect on small businesses passing between generations.

The estate tax burdens farmers because agriculture involves the use of many capital assets, such as land and equipment, to generate the same amount of income that other types of businesses generate with fewer assets. Individuals, partnerships, and family corporations own 98 percent of the nation’s 2.2 million farms and ranches. The estate tax may force surviving family members to sell land, buildings, or equipment to keep their operation going.

So if I have a farm in Iowa (under 2013 tazes)= 1,000 acres (small really) cost per acre = 10,000 PA $ tractors at about 100K each, 2 combines 150K each other equipment at aprox 1m, building at 2M I would half to pay almost 5M in taxes-- so i would have to sell my farm just to pay the taxes. Now A 500 acre farm cannot compete so I am done. Further why should I pay taxes twice, why shoul the G ment take my money twice.

[Tumbling Dice]

a 5 Million dollar estate isn't even the average worth of a family farm in Iowa.  Most small businesses are worth more than 5 million.

The wealthy can easily avoid any estate tax, it doesn't hurt them.

The Middle class supported the Republican party, there polices help the middle class. Romney won the middle class. It was the near lock step minorty vote that gave obama the win

$50,000 -$100,000 (the Middle class) Romney 53%  http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls

How many farms are broken up in the US because of the wealth tax?  More probably go under from being squeezed by big corporation supermarket chains.

And the 'minorities' are not some special class of people set apart.  They make up the middle class and those who aspire to join the middle class, as well as the working class and the underclass.  Demographic changes means that the Republicans are going to have to win the 'aspiring minorities' votes if they want to win the presidency again.

and yes there is plenty of evidence that an estate tax prevents generational wealth.

It will reduce the amount of wealth that is passed down through the generations, but does it discourage enterprise or investment?  Maybe if people don't inherit as much it might motivate people to get off their arses and make their own fortune, if they can be bothered or have the gumption to.  As Warren Buffet says, he wants his children to be well off enough so they feel like they can do anything, but not enough well off enough so that they feel they can do nothing.

[Maximus]

a 5 Million dollar estate isn't even the average worth of a family farm in Iowa.  Most small businesses are worth more than 5 million.

The wealthy can easily avoid any estate tax, it doesn't hurt them.

The Middle class supported the Republican party, there polices help the middle class. Romney won the middle class. It was the near lock step minorty vote that gave obama the win

$50,000 -$100,000 (the Middle class) Romney 53%  http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls

How many farms are broken up in the US because of the wealth tax?  More probably go under from being squeezed by big corporation supermarket chains.

And the 'minorities' are not some special class of people set apart.  They make up the middle class and those who aspire to join the middle class, as well as the working class and the underclass.  Demographic changes means that the Republicans are going to have to win the 'aspiring minorities' votes if they want to win the presidency again.

and yes there is plenty of evidence that an estate tax prevents generational wealth.

It will reduce the amount of wealth that is passed down through the generations, but does it discourage enterprise or investment?  Maybe if people don't inherit as much it might motivate people to get off their arses and make their own fortune, if they can be bothered or have the gumption to.  As Warren Buffet says, he wants his children to be well off enough so they feel like they can do anything, but not enough well off enough so that they feel they can do nothing.

Minorities gave Obama the election, that is a fact--the middle class supported Romney

back to farms

Rancher Kevin Kester works dawn to dusk, drives a 12-year-old pick-up truck and earns less than a typical bureaucrat in Washington D.C., yet the federal government considers him rich enough to pay the estate tax -- also known as the "death tax."
 
And with that tax set to soar at the beginning of 2013 without some kind of intervention from Congress, farmers and ranchers like Kester are waiting anxiously. 
 
"There is no way financially my kids can pay what the IRS is going to demand from them nine months after death and keep this ranch intact for their generation and future generations," said Kester, of the Bear Valley Ranch in Central California.
 
Two decades ago, Kester paid the IRS $2 million when he inherited a 22,000-acre cattle ranch from his grandfather. Come January, the tax burden on his children will be more than $13 million.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/16/ranchers-farmers-brace-for-death-tax-impact/#ixzz2GUxZ2j88

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20121214/BETTERLIFE06/312140062/Indiana-farmers-fear-estate-tax-changes

Rep. Jim Zehringer on point with comment on loss of family farms in Ohio

Politifact:

Echoing Gov.-elect John Kasich’s pledge to cut taxes, Ohio’s incoming agriculture chief recently called for the elimination of the state’s estate tax.

The tax has contributed to the declining number of family farms in Ohio, said State Rep. Jim Zehringer, a Republican from Northwest Ohio whom Kasich recently picked to lead the state’s Department of Agriculture.

 "Ohio is losing over 700 family farms a year, some of them just to pay the inheritance tax," Zehringer said at a Nov. 16 news conference at which Kasich introduced him as the new agriculture director.

We rate the statement True