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What a stupid, childish ad hominem attack. Just because you can't actually rebut my points.

Come back when you can grow up and discuss like an adult.

Well, fat chance of that. We all know from his dismissiveness, that Joe holds himself in considerably higher esteem than anybody hereabouts. Imagine being one of his kids...being talked down to like a fucking idiot, which he so obviously enjoys, for a lifetime.

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As I've pointed out many times, the reason I ask is Roe is a compromise that does take into perspective viability and the growing personhood of the fetus later in pregnancy.

Yeah. I guess for some people, being a so-called "moderate" or "centrist" "independent" is refusing to take a stance or a coherent position.

"Are you pro-flat earth or anti-flat earth?" "Well, let's wait for all the facts to come in, let's not rush to judgement, I don't really want to go to the extremes of either side".

This is why I am not one. I may not be as hard left as Shining Path but pointless equivocation on so many things seems foolish to me. Bothsidesism is rarely true. Objectivity is desirable, neutrality (not the same thing) is usually silly.

P.S. if you think I'm talking about you, anybody in particular, I may or may not be, I refuse to be definitive on that issue.

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

And so the solution is that in order to help the working poor and disadvantaged, we need to focus not on them but on taking money away from other people based upon what you think they "deserve". That's what I am hearing. Not much discussion on the benefits to the poor or disadvantaged but more of the need to tax this group of people because they have it or because we don't think they deserve it. So we are going to use the government and the laws to take that away from them. Who get's to decide on who is or is not deserving. The government? You? GoU? So somebody works their whole life and sacrifices, takes risks, to accumulate an estate to take care of themselves and their families. Along the way they provide for their employees and pay taxes. When they die, you want a say in who deserves to benefit from their estate? Who in your view "deserves" it. So pardon me to objecting to such as scheme and going back to a concept of fair and reasonable taxation. I know you don't like the term but I think it is much more reasonable than a system of taxation primarily designed on some vague emotional concept of using the tax code to punish the "undeserving".

I have said before that I don't take issue with the idea of taxation. Taxes are necessary. But they should not be punitive. They should not be based on some emotional concept of taking something from somebody because we don't think they "deserve" it. That is not my idea of living in a free country. It is not the governments job in a free country to pick who or what gets my estate when I am gone. You can tax it as long as those taxes are fair and reasonable but the remainder and who gets it is none of your concern.

I don't need to defend positions I have not put forward or advocated. There is nothing to rebut other than to point out that you keep demanding it. You want to have an adult discussion. Try discussing like an adult. Misrepresenting the views of others isn't adult. It''s lying. It's childish and you do it all the time.

I support a progressive taxation system because it is fair, not because it is punitive to people with wealth. Those with wealth don't need to be punished. However, just as when you rent a bigger apartment, you pay higher rent, wealthy people who consume more of societal resources should pay higher rent for the utilization. I do not view that as "punishment".

Also, BTW, I don't want to punish wealthy people, but I feel in the name of fairness they should not get more input into our political system than I have as a voter and citizen, just because they are much wealthier. They can voice their concerns. I can voice mine. But the billionaire should not be a thousand times more likely to be heard than I am. That is not fair.

Yes, fairness, this concept that seems to outrage conservatives, but be key to the worldview of Mr. Rogers, and his Neighborhood.

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

I am not an expert on Roe. So I can't say I agree with all of it. Can you? There are lawyers and judges out there who support Roe that don't agree with every facet of the decision. So if I don't think Roe should be overturned, is it therefore a requirement that I declare that I agree with every sentence and every word in the decision? Is that the standard?

Every Supreme Court decision I disagree with, I can state why.

You can get me going on Kelo vs. New London, DC vs. Heller, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, and of course, my favorite one to hate, Citizens United.

I am not a lawyer, but I can definitely tell you what I don't like about them.

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

I have never had a problem with fairness. You are correct that it means different things to different people. I stated what I thought was fair and reasonable. I gave a range of rates. I think the concept of fairness should also extend to the government. They should not be entitled to more than their fair share. The government does not deserve more than that. It matters not whether the heir "deserves" it in somebody else's view. I don't have a say in what you do with your money. It is not my business. I get to decide who deserves what from my estate. Not you, not GoU, not the government. That is not the job of government. That appears to be the focus of this discussion. Very little time has been spent discussing how this benefits the poor and disadvantaged.

Of course you can. Because when you post an opinion you do it having done some investigation that supports your opinion.

But what we get from Joe is this I'm no expert BS. Full of sound and signifying nothing. This monotonously running to hide in the weeds of the "I'm not an expert" dodge was old three years ago. He's not an expert on when life begins. He's not an expert on pro-life. He's not an expert on pro-choice. He will ignore my suggestion that what he actually is...is anti-choice...which doesn't require any medical expertise, or ideological expertise, but is just an opinion. But thers's Joe. "I've never had a problem with fairness." WTF does that mean?

I kinda just realized what my problem with him is. He talks like a fucking Republican politician. And we all know without question now, what the grand old party has turned itself into. And Joe will continue to blubber vacuuous excuses for his support of a party that has turned itself into a co-conspiratorial accomplice in the multigenrational criminal enterprise that is the Trump family.

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That is on the spending side of fiscal policy, not the revenue side.

Discussing the estate tax is a discussion of how the government should receive tax revenue.

How government spends tax revenue is a discussion, then, of how it might benefit the poor and disadvantaged. The welfare state. Job training programs. Development programs. Etc.

Of course, you can't disconnect these two discussions, as the government can't spend tax revenue it doesn't collect.

Obviously, starving it of revenue disables it from spending in these areas. I believe Motor City refers to that as "austerity".

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

If you disagree with the decision then you should be able to say why. But I never said I disagreed with Roe. I never called for it to be overturned. In my view it is settled law. I merely stated that I am not an expert on the decision so I am not prepared to say I agree with the decision on every point. Am I allowed to reserve judgement on things with which I may not be familiar?

Oh, yes, the old "works all their lives blah, blah, blah" meme. Tell me what a hedge fund manager contributes to society. Tell me what non-productive wealth contributes to society. I grow tired of the bullshit of "punitive taxes" and "redistribution" and "socialism! communism!"

The vast majority of people do work all their lives. And, yeah, I read Chrystia Freeland's "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else." Interesting reading. The plutocrats do work hard. Many of them much longer own a day than most people. That is not the question. Working hard is irrelevant. Distortion, asymmetry, knowledge control, access control, legislative capture, agency problems and the poor-mouth cry of wealth have resulted in the mess we have because there is no alternative when "freedom" is based upon economic theology. You mentioned freedom. Such a word is meaningless unless you can frame it writ large. A poor man is not free. A poor man who lacks for food, shelter, clothing is not free. Justice systems based upon retribution and vengeance for property is not freedom. Destruction of cities by deindustrialization is not freedom. Sanctioned extortion by capital for "tax breaks" is not freedom. You are not free either. That isn't because of government. It is because of the private sector which controls everything you do.

You fail constantly and continuously to understand that the system lies at the root of the problems faced by this country and the world at large. Look into the PRC which has seen high growth for many years, much higher than ours. They are regressing politically because they fear social unrest due to mass internal migrations. For all the trumpeting of raising millions out of poverty the PRC understands and fears what slow to no growth means for their country in general and the party in particular. The answer is not free markets because such a thing does not exist.

You say that we should address the poor. You are right. How do you do that? Train them up? In what? Automation is continuously destroying labor and it is accelerating.

You tell me what to do. Parasitic wealth does nothing. Those who have much of them much will be expected to go back to morality. Yet philanthro-capitalism is no better. WTF does a Bill Gates know about complex social relations in sub-saharan Africa? WTF does Zuckerberg know about indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin? Philanthro-capitalism seeks to impose a value system based upon exploitive development derived from western capitalism.

Start with this: the concepts of return on investment, interest and profit are all claims on future growth. Thus growth MUST be infinite. Yet resources are not infinite. Technology will not "save" anything because wealth controls access to resources and population aggregates and concentrates. Rural America which is in crisis helped elect the idiot-in-chief with his bleating of making America great again. Ain't happening because greatness was not defined although it was dog-whistled as keeping white Americans on top. Foolish that because those same buffoons wouldn't get a hand out from wealth no matter the color of their skin.

You want to help? Drop the punitive tax nonsense because it means nothing. Look at the rot around you and ask where the flying phucque the money is going to come from. Crumbling infrastructure (I work in that industry so I know) isn't going to get fixed by the free market. Private-public partnerships (P3 a new buzzword) relegate public to a junior position because private ONLY CARES ABOUT RETURN.

So, communitarian or libertarian/free market? One may work, one doesn't. Not really much of a choice, is it?

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bird's theorem-"we the people" are stupid.

"No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons." - Herodotus

The new motto of the USA: Unum de multis. Out of one, many.

But your justification for changing current law is "income inequality". I am assuming that involves bettering the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. Otherwise why do it? So it begs the question. How does this policy address the problem of the poor and disadvantaged?

I don't know if I've ever read the entire legal brief and opinion myself, Joe. Maybe j-dog has in law school. Dunno. Certainly, as one of the most famous SCOTUS decisions of all time, there have been all kinds of documentaries and books made about it. It's also well noted in a few textbooks I have.

I mean, the answer is of course, yes.

Thing is, I'd be glad to leave things there, but the only reason why I won't is, without trying to sound too much like Lib , we're clearly in a current environment where there seems to be people attempting to overturn Roe (which is why Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were asked about it), or at least to chip away at it. We have states RIGHT NOW currently trying to pass "fetal heartbeat" laws. They have to know Roe will invalidate those laws as is, so they clearly want them to go to SCOTUS as challenges to Roe. So there will be a point where people are asked to defend it from these challenges.

I hope you'll be with me, Joe, when that time comes. OK, I was only being slightly facetious in saying that.

I am against these fetal heartbeat laws, not just because they go against Roe, but because they are wrong-headed, and I've said why.

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

Which policy are we talking about? The OP I started this thread off with was the elimination of the estate tax, a policy which I opposed. At least, I think by my mockery of Mitch it should be clear I was opposing it.

Income inequality is a social problem, yes, but I haven't really mentioned that, per se, in this thread yet.

Tax policy IMHO needs to be progressive so as to collect as little as possible from the poor and disadvantaged. Best example I can think of: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

But again, what you're asking is, how to help the poor and disadvantaged? Well, as I keep saying, we need programs to benefit them.

Now, I will concede, we could have a 100% estate tax (not that I'm advocating one), and then spend all that money on gigantic SHIELD helicarriers and flying fortresses, and yes, it wouldn't benefit the poor and disadvantaged.

So to answer your question, as I keep saying, we help the poor and disadvantaged in the ways we spend and USE tax revenue, which is a separate discussion from how we collect it. Though also, you can't completely delink those discussions, either. To spend gov't revenue, you have to be able to collect enough. I understand if you spend more than you take in, you get deficits and debt.

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-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Malaclypse the Younger

Hardly anybody in this government cares about the poor and disadvantaged. They care about a system the SCOTUS forced on us where political donations are protected free speech. They care about getting their share of the pot before some bucks-up right wing Republican beats them in the next election. It's all about the money, honey.

Historians spend a lot of time looking for the releasing causes that precipitate the implosion of a culture that was already not doing that great. It's worth further investigation of the records to determine if our releasing cause was Citizens United, or before that supply side, or before that the self-proclaimed "Reagan revolution."

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"This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." --President Donald J. Trump, May 2017

He doesn't agree with the first letter of the first word and the final period in the written decision. Other than that, he has no problem with it.

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When you vote Left you vote right.

Tax discussions on this board most often center around the issues of income equality so maybe I assumed too much. However you mentioned that policy should not take more than necessary from the poor. I don’t disagree. I also don’t think policy should take more than what is necessary from the middle class or from upper income. When arriving at a number required to sustain the government one would have to consider expenditures first. So if the reason most sided for taxing high net worth people is to battle income equality then I think it logical to ask how the policy solves that problem. When you go to a bank or to an investor for money, they always want to know what you are going to do with it. As I taxpayer, I should be able to ask the same question?

It is STUNNING to watch a middle to lower middle class human being go out of their way, take time out of their day, to worry about a billionaire paying taxes.

It really is. It is one thing for them not to understand economics, how higher tax brackets for the wealthy helps everyone, another entirely to watch them actually worry about the poor billionaire.

Almost as DUMB as rump saying the VA governor wants to kill babies.

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"Corporate Democrat" phrase created at the same place "Angry Mob" was...People keep falling for rightwing talking points. How sad.

Really good, bird. Human civilization is not all it's cracked up to be, eh? And Joe? He's had all day to do something with what you've handed him here. And the silence was deafening.

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Look at yourself. You weren't discussing at all. Then you attacked me stupidly and childishly. GROW UP!!!

Here's a simple concept: FAIRNESS. If you receive money, you pay taxes like everyone else.

I draw a paycheck. I'm a wage earner. I pay taxes on every dime I earn. I have very few deductions. I'm in an upper-middle-class bracket. I pay a lot of taxes. Never bothered me, I understand they are my society bill, for a society instead of an anarchy.

I'm the heaviest taxed of all. I earn my money. Republicans tax wage earners the heaviest. If you sit at the pool on the phone with your broker, you pay a lower rate on that money. That's unearned money.

I believe in progressive taxation. Those with more money pay a larger percentage in taxes. That's fair, because they can afford it better than someone scrounging for their next meal.

We pay taxes on all kinds of money we get. Hell, if you win at the lottery or the casino, you pay taxes on those winnings.

But Republicans want to make generational wealth nontaxable. They want to do away with an Estate Tax.

An Estate Tax isn't a death tax, it's a tax on the Estate when it switches over.

To me, this is unearned money. You're getting money you didn't earn. And don't pull the "family farm" bullshit. Has never happened. But you don't even have to be family to inherit money.

To me, let's make it simple. Make all income the same progressive tax system. No matter how you get money, you pay taxes as you get it. If Conrad Hilton wants a great-granddaughter to have a billion dollars (which he didn't, BTW, his will had the vast bulk of his estate going to charity, his son went to court and had the will thrown out), then she can pay taxes when she receives that money. Same progressive rate that I do.

If you want to play the market instead of working for a living, you pay the same taxes on that income, too.

Simple.

What's simple is the fact that as the top tier of personal income tax has been reduced from 70% when Reagan became president to 37% now...income disparity between the wealthiest Americans and the most financially disadvantaged Americans has expanded. You will say your not an expert. Which is Joespeak for "who gives a shit."

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Under a rock.

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