flockofseagulls104 wrote:
Bob78164 wrote:
tlynn78 wrote:
Blind, willful stupidity is the only explanation.
Blind willful stupidity is probably an appropriate explanation for people, particularly elected officials, who assume that those who disagree with them do so from ignorance rather than from their own independent evaluation of the evidence.
So where's your evidence that blowing a trillion-dollar hole in the deficit in order to fund tax cuts for the rich will make the country a better place for those who aren't already millionaires? Because Republicans consistently took the position that we couldn't afford substantially less than that to fund free community college for all students. --Bob
Where's your evidence that a dollar in the hands of the Federal government rather than the person who earned it makes the country a better place?
Medicare. Social security. A standing army. A court system. Just off the top of my head.
One other point, by the way. If memory serves (this is a vague memory from the Bush 43 years -- I'm not a tax attorney), family farms (which I presume is what Spock is talking about) already get estate tax treatment that is substantially more favorable than most people receive, precisely to recognize the likelihood that the heirs themselves put in substantial work that added value.
Here is a much more common situation. Ms. 63 and I bought our house in 1997. We happened to buy in West Los Angeles at the bottom of the market so, even looked at as a tear-down, our property is now worth
a lot more than we paid for it. What did
we do to earn that increase? Nothing. We were just lucky enough to buy in a location that appreciated in value, primarily because California's regulations on new construction are too strict, creating an artificial housing shortage.
Some decades ago, Ms. 63 bought some Apple shares for her retirement account. They're now worth
a lot of money. How did her purchase add value to the company? It didn't. We're not talking about an IPO here. She bought on the public markets, so the money she used to buy the stock didn't go to Apple. It went to whoever owned the stock before her.
Despite all of this good fortune, we're still (by an order of magnitude or so) comfortably below the threshold where we'd even have to start thinking about estate tax, but if we weren't, I'd be fine with that. --Bob