If no one's paying it, why bother getting rid of it? I like the death tax. I see no reason to get rid of it. Kids can make their own way in life instead of relying on the demise of their forebears.
It is not ethical for the government to take my earned resources and give it to wealthy bankers and then borrow money that I have to pay back as taxes and run the government on debt. That is called theft by bankers. ie. Federal Reserve. Like I said, I am not big on taxes when we run 7 trillion in debt to fund the government. As far as leaving an inheritance to children I'll go with this- "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children..." Proverbs 13:22
It's still the recipient being taxed (since the other party is decreased) - the amount the recipient receives is less than the amount that was granted by the sender. It's no different than the government withholding on your weekly wages. The government takes it out before the recipient ever sees it, but only takes it out upon the transfer to the recipient.
Ummm, we have a federal budget of about $2 trillion dollars. 80-90% of that is funded by tax dollars comng in that year (including interest payments on previous debt).
If you're not big on taxes, and you're not big on borrowing, how do you expect the government to run?
Are you talking about the inheritance tax? "One of the oldest and most common forms of taxation is the taxation of property held by an individual at the time of their death. Such a tax can take the form, among others, of estate tax (a tax levied on the estate before any transfers). An estate tax is a charge upon the decedent's entire estate, regardless of how it is disbursed. An alternative form of death tax is an inheritance tax (a tax levied on individuals receiving property from the estate). Taxes imposed upon death provide incentive to transfer assets before death." http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/estate_gift_tax.html
Actually I am all for smaller government. If they tie the repeal of estate tax to a balanced budget amendment, I am all for it.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay smaller. Based upon Constitutional taxes and zero PORK. Send the bloated beast home with a pink slip. Put the troops on our borders to protect our shores and put the paper with green ink on a gold standard (or some other real asset) and after the hard times of correction we will all have to walk through are over we will rise again as the most industrious powerful and free nation on the planet. China will buy our goods and some smart American may just come up with an alternate energy product that makes OPEC weep. Give America a fighting chance out of the strangle hold of the International bankers and Industrialists and we will be fine. I still believe the dream.
OK, I'm not sure I buy the gold standard and all that stuff , but I agree with the notion of way smaller and zero pork. The reality is, however, that neither of those will happen. So the question is, given that government has to be funded, how do you fund it? Taxes or debt?
I am right there with you. I just can't support repealing taxes, particularly taxes that only affect the wealthy, when we are running record budget deficits.
Except the estate/death tax does not only affect the wealthy. It affects every entity (person, organization, charity) they wish to divide their estate among. Assume I have worked hard all my life (use your imagination ), and I have started my own business. I worked 60-80 hours a week making it successful and have reaped profits due to my diligence, foresight and hard work. All along the way, I have been paying my fair share of taxes. Assume I now have enough assets, which I have been working hard for, to reach the high end of the estate tax threshold (in other words, if I die, I would not owe estate tax). I am now 70 years old and decide that after all those years of hard work I am ready to retire. I sell my business, make a huge windfall and I pay taxes on that windfall. Assume I am now $10,000,000 over the threshold after paying taxes on the earnings from the sale of my business. I drop dead at age 71. Why should my estate be taxed? Why should I not be able to divide my money and assets which I have earned and which I have paid taxes on among all of my loved ones who I want to share in my hard work as I see fit? After all, I earned it, I should be the one who decides how it gets split up.
I do recall your conservative stance on many things. If I understand you from this thread to be a libertarian conservative, do you also support getting out of Iraq (burns a whole lot of tax money), downsizing weapons systems (a whole lot of pork), get out of moral regulations (religion, abortion, etc. -- less bureaucracy), cutting funding for EPA, NIH, etc. (consistent with conservative wet dream), closing loopholes on corporate taxation, no universal health care coverage (also consistent with conservative wet dream), etc.? If yes, then I applaud your consistency. If not, then you'd just be a "I want everything but don't charge me for it" conservative.
andymoon- I don't know you, but I think from your posts you are what I would call a caring democrat. If my assumption is right I understand your points. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The biggest lie in Washington is that we have a budget surplus. When will a politician in Washington have the honesty to admit that we do NOT have a REAL budget surplus? We only have the appearance of a budget surplus because of bookkeeping sleight-of-hand. Many years ago, a decision was made to include the Social Security Trust Fund transactions within the Federal Budget. Since much more FICA tax is collected than is paid out in benefits, the positive net inflow into the Trust Fund helped offset the huge deficit in all other "accounts" in the Federal budget. This bookkeeping dishonestly helped hide the true growth of our huge national debt. It is, in fact, an "off-the-books" borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund. There is no REAL budget surplus until all the other (non-Trust Fund) accounts no longer run a deficit. It is time to separate the Social Security Trust Fund transactions from the Federal budget and reveal the actual deficit in the Federal budget. Then we would see the REAL federal budget surplus or deficit. It is wonderful that the current budget is finally showing an "apparent" surplus. But let’s not lie to ourselves. It is not a REAL surplus. The politicians should not buy votes by offering a tax reduction that will drastically increase the REAL deficit and the REAL debt that we pass on to our grandchildren. Neither should the politicians squander the apparent surplus on "pork barrel spending" with the same result. Even if there were a REAL surplus, it should be used to repay the "off-the-books" borrowing before we allow politicians to use it to buy votes. When we finally repay all that "off-the-books" borrowing, we have to get to work on our National Debt. Do we really want to pass this huge burden on to our grandchildren? ---------------------------------------------------- Prof. James T. LaTourrette 2 Candlewood Ct. Huntington, NY 11743-1827 516-271-6763latour@rama.poly.edu http://rama.poly.edu/~latour -------------------------------------------------------------------- Talk of a Budget Surplus is Deceitful - By Adam Smith, Ninth District Congressman On July 15, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued revised federal budget estimates that show our country is finally on the right track towards fiscal responsibility. The CBO, a non- partisan economic analysis agency within Congress, believes that the United States will have a $63 billion surplus this year, a $251 billion surplus over the next five years, and will take in $1.6 trillion more in revenue than it will spend over the next decade. These new numbers have led many in Congress — on both sides of the aisle — to toss aside fiscal discipline and renew calls for massive tax cuts or increased spending. Ten times a day it seems, I hear somebody, either a member of Congress or some other individual pushing a new spending idea or a tax cut, explain where the money will come from for their plan by simply saying, "we can take it from the surplus". House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Budget Chairman John Kasich go right to the head of the class in this contest by proposing to cut taxes by $700 billion over the next ten years. This money, of course, would simply come out of the surplus. Democrats have not been nearly as bold in their proposals, but rest assured many of them have plans for all of this extra money as well. There is one significant problem with all of this euphoria — we don't have a surplus now and we won't really take in an extra $1.6 trillion in the next decade. The CBO estimates do not tell the whole story. Two things explain this seeming inconsistency. First, the CBO numbers do not address the already existing debt. Over the last thirty years, those annual deficits we have always heard so much about have come to a total of $5.4 trillion. Even if we truly could expect $1.6 trillion in surplus revenues over the next decade, that would still leave us $3.8 trillion in debt, more than twice the size of our entire yearly budget. To analogize, we have been digging this hole for a long time, and merely stopping the digging does nothing to get us out of the hole we have created. Second, the CBO, as well as the entire federal government, plays some interesting accounting games with the surplus generated in the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF). Going back to the analogy for moment, we haven't even really stopped digging. Since workers pay money into the SSTF now and get it back years later, the fund generates a surplus that we can't spend now because we know we will need it later. By law, in order to ensure the money doesn't get lost in some questionable investment scheme, that surplus must be put into government-backed securities, meaning that the federal government borrows the money and pays interest to the fund for the right to borrow that money. What most people don't realize is that the CBO counts that money as income for the federal government. The federal deficit is therefore artificially offset by the surplus in the SSTF. But it's not income. It's borrowed money. Instead of borrowing it from a bank, we've borrowed it from American workers. Using numbers based in reality, the budget over the next ten years looks very different. We will borrow $81 billion this fiscal year from the SSTF. So that rosy scenario of a $63 billion surplus turns into an $18 billion deficit, and we keep digging that hole deeper, beyond the $5.4 trillion mark. The $1.6 trillion in surpluses we supposedly rack up over the next ten years, turns into only $250 billion in surpluses. Good news — no question — we will have finally stopped digging and started heading in the right direction. But we will also still have a debt of over $5 trillion. I find these dishonest manipulations of federal budget numbers deeply disturbing. Budget numbers based in reality give rise to many important policy questions. Is a large tax cut so important that we are willing to increase our federal debt and forgo increased investments for things like education, health care for seniors, defense, and transportation? Should we dramatically cut programs like these in order to reduce the federal debt and cover the cost of a large tax cut? Should we hold the line on both increased spending and tax cuts until we reduce the debt? --------------------------------------------------------------------- andymoon- Our problems run far deeper than you are looking. We shouldn't be in debt period, especially 7 trillion $$$$$ (that's just the government) and GROWING. Debt is the business of the Central Bankers (Federal Reserve System). It is how they control nations.
A large part of the reason that you were able to make all that money was the environment and the advantages given to you by our system of government. Free markets, public education, the court system, and many other publicly funded programs had a part in you amassing that wealth. As such, the government has every right to tax that money, especially since you aren't around to use it any more. A better question should be "why should rich heirs get a tax free windfall?" The heir didn't do diddly to amass that wealth, why shouldn't the government tax those funds before said rich kid gets to laze around off of those monies for the rest of his/her life?
Actually, I am a fiscal conservative with a sense of social justice. I agree with you, but repealing a tax already in effect will ADD to that already massive debt. I would support repealing the entire income tax system altogether in favor of a consumption tax, but I will never support repealing the estate tax, a component of the income tax system that only affects the rich.
Why not? No skin off of my nose. Sometimes it is like the Republicans are saying "F*ck the poor lazy man". Here it is like the Democrats are saying "F*ck the the rich lazy man".
