Are Republicans evil?

Great Debates
121

And just to explain what Scylla is referring to:

Say your grandmother bought some land back in 1950 for $20,000. Say today that land is worth $100,000. If Granny sells the land today, she has to pay income tax on her capital gain of $80,000 (100k FMV - 20k cost basis = 80k capital gain).

Now, say instead of selling, Granny wills the land to you, and then Granny kicks the bucket. Granny’s estate will pay estate tax on the value of the land. You will get the land at a stepped up cost basis of $100k. Thus, if you sell the land the day after Granny dies, you will not owe any tax because you will not have any taxable gain (100k FMV - 100k stepped-up cost basis = 0 taxable capital gains).

Thus, for an inheritance, the government will collect estate tax, but will not collect income tax if the property is immediately sold. Say you hold the property for a year, and its value increases to $105,000. The government will collect income tax on your capital gain of $5,000 (105k FMV - 100k stepped-up cost basis = 5k taxable capital gain).

Proposals to repeal the estate tax are tied to eliminating the basis step-up. Thus, if the estate tax is repealed, and Granny dies, her estate pays no tax, but you take her original cost basis in the property – $20,000. Thus, if you sell immediately, you will owe income taxes on an $80,000 capital gain, same as Granny would have if she had sold a few days before her death. Similarly, if you hold the property for a year, you would owe income taxes on an $85,000 capital gain.

As to how much the government actually collects under each scenario will depend on specific facts, specifically the size of Granny’s estate and your income tax bracket.

122

No.

I’m talking about votes. About half the US voters routinely go to the polls to pull the Republican lever. Are you saying they are all bribed?

I am just trying to point out that you don’t even understand why people could be doing this. If only 1% of the population benefits from having a Republican in office, why are so many voting for them?

**

Yes, there are many. However, the ones you mention have nothing to do with it. The Republicans are not deluded about anything. And, I love that word insidious. You really do just think that republicans are evil don’t you? If you weren’t in this thread we would actually have to go out and find cites to prove that people think republicans are evil. Thanks for showing up.

**

The tax cuts primarily benefit the top 1 percent because the top 1 percent is paying a full third of the income taxes.

This cite shows it:

**

Here is another cite that says the “wealthiest 1 percent” (above $269,496) of Americans pay 35 percent of the tax revenue.

So, I am in favor of tax cuts. I think the government is too large. To cut taxes fairly, all tax rates for all income groups should be cut. This is exactly what happened. So, because the rich are paying a larger share of taxes in the first place, they get a larger reduction of those taxes.

**

Well, I will try to do this without sounding like I am copying Dewey too much.

I am not a republican. I am registered independant. I do have many conservative beliefs, however. I also agree with a lot of what the libertarians have to say. I usually vote a mixture of Republican and Libertarian.

Aw, hell w/ it. Dewey said it better and dewey said it first. I will just address his points.

  1. Absolutely! Above all else, the government is inefficient. The private sector isn’t perfect either. But, if a company is poorly run then it can eventually be out of business. If an industry is not looking to the future, then new comanies will emerge to meet the needs of consumers. No such features exist for government. No matter how poorly the department of education does, there is no competition. They will never go “out of business” if they fail so there is no reason to operate efficiently. For this reason, the private sector, not the government should be relied on as much as possible to meet the needs of people.

  2. If state and local govenments paid for more, then they would keep a better eye on where the money is going. Federal money is looked upon as free money, to be collected and spent. Local dollars are closely guarded because it’s easier to keep an eye on things at that level. The Big Dig here in boston, which is 75% federally paid for is a perfect example of this. Hundreds of millions of dollars going to museams and other wastes, but no one here in Mass complains. Because it’s mostly money from the other 49 states that we are spending. If we had to pay for this project ourselves we would be more fiscally responsible.

  3. Small government is beautiful. See reasons from #1 above.

  4. Keeping taxes as low as practicable. Want to start a new government program? Great! But, you should have to find one to cut first.

  5. 17% of the budget is going to the military. IMO it should be higher. This is what I pay my taxes for. I am saving for my own retirement, I have my own HMO. What I need is the government to protect me and the interests of my country at home and abroad. A stong military is essential.

  6. “I believe in equality of opportunity, not of outcome.” Is this a quote by somebody more famous than Dewey? Well, it should be.

  7. The constitution has gotten us this far. I like strict constitutionalist judges. The legislature should make new laws, not liberal judges. I am very pro-choice, but think that Roe v Wade was a bad decision.

  8. I am generally not too much of an anti-lawsuit person. I was in favor of the (dare I mention it?) McDonalds coffee lawsuit. Is any particular party pro- or anti- lawsuit?

  9. Bill of Rights. It bothers me that the 10th ammendment is ignored. I am a supporter of the second ammendment.

  10. Whining. Heh. I would say that the Democrats whine more, but I wouldn’t want to look like they do when they call Republicans evil.

123

Um, GW Bush has done cocaine. Karl Rove planted the story with James Hatfield, whom he knew would be discredited, and then Bush refused to directly answer the question except to say he hadn’t done illegal drugs in the past 20 plus years.

May I reasonably conclude from that that Bush is a former cokehead. (And probably other drugs.) Yes. Is there a possibility that I might be wrong? A small one. Is being a former cokehead all by itself more than 2 decades ago a bad thing? Not presently. It would affect my opinion zero if they guy said he had, but didn’t anymore. Except that I might not think that he was such a weasel. Do I find his silence on the subject while presiding over a penal system that punishes this conduct hypocritical. Yes. But he is hardly the first. Incidentally, Clinton was called a cokehead on much less evidence.

124

Because of the way marginal tax rates work, any reduction in tax rates will go in proportionally greater quantities to the wealthy. Most tax cuts will benefit the wealthy more than the poor, at least in a nominal dollar sense, because the wealthy pay more of the taxes to begin with. Indeed, the Democrats are fundamentally dishonest on this point when they argue that a tax cut doesn’t help the poorest of the poor – of course it doesn’t, because the poorest of the poor aren’t paying income taxes to begin with.**

Eliminating the estate tax is justified on moral grounds (it’s wrong for the government to take a bite out of what a man has taken a lifetime building, particularly when he’s been taxed on his income during his lifetime) and on practical grounds (the administrative costs of the tax eat up most of the revenue generated). Capital gains cuts are designed to stimulate investment by increasing the effective rate of return on capital investments (this was in my item #4, which you said you agree with, BTW). You’ll have to elaborate on your SS point.**

Take off the tinfoil hat. Nordquist’s Americans for Tax Reform is just an issue advocacy group, same as any other. The Stonecutters they ain’t. And I note that Nordquist is frequently at odds with the social-conservative wing of the party.
**

Yeah, that John McCain sure was trying to strangle the campaign finance reform baby in the crib, and the Bush administration hated it so much that they signed it into law. Guess those 1%ers aren’t as poweful as you thought. :rolleyes:

Besides, opposition to CFR is based on a principled belief in the first amendment. Preventing someone (or an aggregate of someones) from paying to broadcast their speech is effectively the same as preventing them from speaking in the first place. Political speech is the bete noir of the first amendment, and should be given the most leeway.**

I have no idea what you mean by “breaking down the walls between the judicial and executive branch.” Is it just that Thomas once held an executive branch post that’s bugging you? And Thomas and wife are conservatives; why should it be surprising that she worked for a conservative lobbying organization? Thurgood Marshall was counsel to the NAACP, which is also an interest group; should that have disqualified him from his seat?**

What major media mergers would you like to see the FCC rule differently on, exactly?

Plus, my God, we live in an age of amazing media diversity. I can flip on the TV and get a bevy of news channels; I can go online and read any number of newspapers. All of those choices present a smorsgasbord of differing opinions. It’s certainly a lot better than the age of only three networks and a local paper.**

Tax reform and capital gains reform aren’t popular? When was the last time a candidate won office by promising to raise your taxes (just ask Walter Mondale how that works)? In an age where over half of the American public owns stock, either directly or through mutual funds, it is perfectly understandable why capital gains reforms would be popular.

And as for farm subsidies – I agree, they’re bad policy. But that isn’t so much a Republican/Democrat thing as it is a rural/urban thing, and given the fact of equal representation in the Senate, rural states wield power out of proportion to their population. When was the last time Tom Dachle voted against farm subsidies for his beloved South Dakotans?**

The populace isn’t clamoring for patented drugs? Then why all that buzz over Viagra? People may not appreciate the patent system in the abstract, but they do appreciate the new drugs that system makes possible.

125

First of all, let’s get our info straight.

The income range for the top 1% is $373,000 and more. Not really an unattainable goal if you are willing to put in the work. For example, get your MD, or work at a good law firm for a while. It’s even easier for a household in which both parents work to reach the top 1%

To be in the top 5% you need to make $147,000. Even easier for a household with two college degrees. Heck, my family reached there and my mom was a teacher and my dad an aerospace engineer. Again, work hard, get an education, go into the right vocation and in a few years you get to be rich. Or be a recent law or med school grad.

The top 20% is even easier. $72,000 and up. The top 40% is $44,000. And so on and so forth.

So anyway, no, I’m not deluded about my chances to enter into the top 1% of the income bracket if I decide I want to. I’m not even a Republican, either. Democrat, in fact.

As for Ace’s blathering about the top 1% being able to get bills passed that are seemingly unpopular…well, it’s quite simple for anyone who knows anything about the legislative system. Which Ace is apparently ignorant of.

There are two ways (generally) that bills that seem to be unpopular get passed.

The first is the loudest voice wins scenario. This is when an issue is at the top of a minority’s list of things and maybe 6th or 10th on the majority’s list. So the minority gets its way because the issue is far more important to them. This is seen most clearly in the gun debates, but it is seen most effectively in farm subsidy debates.

The second is that an important member of Congress wants a bill to pass/not pass, so that member will hold things up until he gets his way. For example, Senator Byrd of West Virginia was quite effective at blocking acid rain bills in the Senate, especially ones that would hurt the coal industry in his state. Why? Not because he was being bribed by the industry, but because it would have caused practically the whole state to be laid off.

So let’s combine these two theories with a case study on farm subsidies, shall we? I’m assuming that your crack about farm aid meant that farmers were getting subsidies but most people felt they were bad. Well, first and foremost, let’s remember that many important legislators, notably Sen. Daschle, come from highly rural states/districts. Let’s also notice that in these districts, the continuation of farm subsidies is one of the biggest issues, and that the issue always comes up as an important factor in these communities when deciding who to elect. Let’s also notice that farm subsidies aren’t an issue anywhere else. When was the last time you saw an urban candidate campaigning on their farm subsidy stance?

The result of all this is that those rural legislators do everything in their power to get farm subsidies through. It’s not an issue for most other legislators, so the issues pass, maybe in return for voting positively on a bill that will benefit some other member’s district.

Not very sinister at all. In fact, with a little edumacation and understanding of what goes on in Congress, we can put away the wacky conspiracy stories that are oh-so-popular with the ignorant and the demagogues (ie, Nader).

As for campaign finance reform, let me be the first to tell you that the labor unions fought this issue tooth and nail. Hardly the people to be in on a corporate conspiracy plot.

126

OK, let’s not kid ourselves here. That’s what a minority may actually oppose it for, but the majority in opposition are opposed because they believe they get a comparative advantage without it. Those with the big political war chests (corporations, labor unions, etc) oppose CFR because they feel that it will limit their ability to outspend the opposition if they need to. The politicians who oppose it do it because they are generally the beneficiaries of large donations, which helps them stay afloat.

Various pundits, columnists and partisans oppose it because they feel it would hinder their “side” in the campaigns.

Same goes for people in favor of it, but with the opposite reasons. Someone’s opponent is outspending them, watch how quickly they become infatuated with CFR.

And then there are some those who wish to use it to catapult themselves into the limelight, ie John McCain, who can support it safely knowing that it will never pass.

All that high and mighty rhetoric about fairness or about first amendment rights are just the language used to try and gain the moral highground.

127

NO. NO. NO. NO.

If Granny bought her house in 1950 for $20,000, and sold it today for more, she has a rollover deduction, one time on a home that covers most of the capital gain. I don’t recall the specific amount, but it used to be $125,000 a few decades ago.

There is no estate tax at all on any estate of less than $750,000. Moreover, the preparation of a simple estate plan can eliminate any estate taxes, and much income tax, for at least a generation.

While I agree that taxes suck, lack of government sucks a hell of a lot more.

128

Sparticus:

I think Dewey was just using the house as an example to illustrate a concept, not as an actual real world example.

And that rollover deduction thing is gone, and she wouldn’t be entitled to it anyway since she’s dead.

He’s giving two examples from one illustration. One assumes the repeal of the estate tax and step up, the other does not. Your issue with the 750k is addressed when he says that taxes owed would depend on the size of the estate.

He’s trying to keep the example simple, but it is correct as he wrote it.

129

Well, Bush didn’t try to stop it and I would think he would qualify as a “major Republican leader”.

You need to take the tin foil hat off. There are many valid reasons not to like CFR. It’s blatantly unconstitutional. If you want to disagree with this fine, start a thread on it. But, don’t blame the conspiracy of the “One Percenters”.

**

I haven’t heard of the Heritage Foundation. But, at this point, I am not going to look into it unless you can give some sites. You’re other claims are so off the charts that I am finding trouble believing anything you say.

**

I think this thread is giving birth to a new secret society for the tin foil hat / black helicopter people to fear. The One Percenters. When I save up my $373,000 (or whatever amount it is) will the come to my house to invite me to the initiation ceremony? I sure hope it’s like Eyes Wide Shut.

**

Now what, your on my case that I haven’t posted to the thread in a whole couple hours? Not that I need to explain, but I find the board often to slow to bother trying to post during the afternoons.

How do you know that there is a majority disapproval of tax reform? cap gains reform? and Farm aid?

Stop 10 people on the street and ask them if they want to pay more taxes. I am sure that most of them would say no. I doubt most voters care about farm aid one way or the other. Besides, as has already been pointed out, plenty of Democrats help farmers.

And please give some examples of these wildly popular policies that have died stilborn because of the evil infestation of Republicans :rolleyes:

130

First of all, just so Ace0Spades has some concept of what the “top 1%” is like, I believe the cut-off is at $300k/year. Now that’s certainly a comfortable income, but I don’t think the average person pulling in $300k has a bunch of politicians in his pocket. Maybe you should refer to these personifications of evil incarnate (or “republicans” for short, if you choose) as “0.1%-ers”.

Second, I’d like to address the matter of preferring someone unintelligent who shares your ideology over a genius with whom you disagree. I agree with that wholheartedly. First of all, brilliant != correct, and secondly, brilliant != noble. Stalin was a very smart man. Would you rather have him as president, or, say, Forrest Gump? Me, I’ll take Forrest. If he shares my philosophy, chances are he’s going to try to do the same things I would if I were elected, so it seems like a safe bet. The intelligence comes into play mostly in deciding how to implement key policies, and how to make them palatable to the public. All that being said, I really doubt that anyone truly stupid would have even a remote chance of achieving a high-level role in politics. You can argue all you want about the relative intelligence of past presidents, but you can’t credibly claim that any of them were actively stupid. Misguided, sure. But not stupid.

I recently read in a Jonah Goldberg column about what he called the “Dowd rule” (inspired by Maureen Dowd, who loves to write articles with no substance that basically consist of ways to call Bush dumb - hard to believe she won a Pulitzer): To paraphrase, anyone who thinks that Bush is dumb is probably not as smart as Bush.

It’s almost impossible to give out a tax cut that isn’t going to give back more money to the wealthy than to the poor, from a nominal standpoint, unless you explicitly exclude the wealthy from the provisions of the cut. Bush’s tax cut, if I recall correctly, is actually weighted so that the wealthier you are, the smaller your tax cut on a percentage basis (I may be wrong here, please correct me if I am). However, giving a 50% tax cut to someone who makes $10k a year is going to be smaller than giving a 1% tax cut to someone who makes $1M a year. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the rules of mathematics.

Secondly, just because the public clammors for something doesn’t make it a good idea, nor is passage of such an act inherently just. If we, the other 299,999,999 citizens of the US demand that you, Ace, should be made to wear a pink boa for all time, that’s certainly something that the majority wants. Does that mean congress should pass a law to make it so?
Jeff

131

Nonsense. Cut payroll taxes. This would have an immediate benefit for the working poor, many of whom pay no federal tax, and the middle class. And, since payroll taxes currently phase out at a high-moderate level ($75k of earnings? don’t recall offhand), a cut would have only moderate benefit for the wealthy.

132

Here you go, along with the antithesis of the ACLU, the ACLJ. There are several well-funded organizations that Jerry Falwell runs through which he tries to get his all-Christian version of America to become a reality. And if you haven’t heard of the Heritage Foundation, come out from under your rock and watch CNN or Fox or something.

133

My bad–ACLJ is Pat Robertson’s. The devil before ye or the devil behind.

134

Scylla, I thought that Dewey’s use of low amounts of money was bound to be horribly mis-informative. Only large estates, and badly planned ones at that pay estate taxes. By using small numbers it was suggested that vastly large numbers of estates are subject to estate taxes. Less than 1 percent of estates are big enough to be subject to estate taxes. For zero planning, any estate under $750,000 will pay zero in taxes. A well planned estate can accomplish all the objectives of the deceased and pay zero taxes for at least a generation.

135

About that payroll tax: That money is an entitlement, and not to be considered government revenue. The money is earmarked to be paid back in the future to the people who put the money in. Cutting payroll taxes in essense means a direct subsidy for workers from the wealthy, since their benefits will still be paid.

136

Sigh!!! Maybe I should have continued to avoid even looking at this thread.

Care to provide a cite? What I have seen by Krugman has focussed on the fact that a large proportion of the tax cut (roughly 40%…effectively perhaps more) will accrue to the top 1%. And, he also points out that much of the tax cut that the middle class is currently seeing will disappear once the alternative minimum tax, which is hitting more and more taxpayers each year, starts to kick in to the middle class.

Speaking of Krugman, I strongly recommend this recent piece by him on the growing inequality: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/20/magazine/20INEQUALITY.html

For another view on whether the carry-over basis will work, see http://www.cbpp.org/7-7-00tax.htm , especially the party below the title “Substituting Carry-over Basis Does Not Solve the Problem.” Here’s an excerpt from it:

137

republicans are 3% more evil than democrats on their bad days and 3% less evil on their good days. the problem is distinguishing the days.

Dal Timgar

138

Amazing. I actually found it. It took an hour. Here’s the Krugman quote that was wrong. On Feb. 26, 2002, he wrote:

On Feb. 22, he had written

It was ridiculous for him to say that “most taxpayers …will discover that they owe $300 more in taxes than they expected.” The only way that could be true would be if most taxpayers had calculated the impact of the Bush Tax Cut in advance, but omitted from their calculation the impact of the early withholding.

It’s more reasonable to assume that most taxpayers expected rebates comparable to the year before. In fact, their rebates were bigger than the year before even though they also had less tax withheld.

The Wall St. Journal addressed these Krugman articles here (scroll down to Krugman Watch.)

**Krugman’s use of the AMT to denigrate the tax cut to the middle class is tendentious bullsh*t. First of all, the AMT would only undo a small portion of the middle class Tax Cut. Secondly, it’s widely expected that the AMT will be adjusted to prevent it from hitting middle class taxpayers with normal deductions. In fact, critics of the tax cut used the cost of the AMT adjustment as an argument of the Tax Cut’s allegedly unaffordable cost.

139

When should one be conservative? When the situation is so excellent, so desireable, that it shoud be preserved against change. And when has it ever been thus?

They don’t teach our children much about the labor movement in America, its kind of embarrassing to have brand names like Ford associated with brutal repression. But it happened, most posters here are educated enough to know it.

And the conservatives? Go slow, can’t hinder the growth of business, can’t foster socialism/communism.

And when, finally, after a hundred years of meaningless “freedom” black America stood up for its own, where were the conservatives. Well, its important to protect state’s rights here, can’t let the Feds dictate social policy, gradual integration and change, that’s the ticket. Go slow.

(I remember Dick Gregorys priceless line: “Get your foot off my grandmothers neck! NOW, Goddammit, not one damn toe at a time!”)

As for Republicanism as a party, it has deteriorated drasticly in my lifetime, from the likes of Barry Goldwater to, God help us, Trent Lott and Phil Gramm. There was an element of Republicanism that recognized the neccesity and the value of social change, and sought only prudence, not obstruction. They are gone, vanished, and the party is in the thrall of bitter cynics like Gingrich, Atwater, and Delay. They cravenly suck up to religious bigots like Falwell and Robertson, without the detestable support of such as these the Republican Party would collapse.

The Karl Rove “No rules in a knife fight” attitude has become predominant in the Republican Party. Is cynicism evil? Perhaps not, but it is a distinction hardly worth making.

140

ELucy, you are as usual, spot on. I particularly liked the Rove “no rules in a knife fight” remark. Lee Atwater had a deathbed repentence, but the Cold Civil War started by Reagan has embittered a generation, which it was intended to do in order to depress voter turnout with increased disgust. What is going to happen when/if the Republican hierarchy has its way? They will factionalize and fight among themselves really ugly.

I still waiting for a uniter, not a divider.