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@Polytheist-Witch
Do you know what social security is?
If you want more money to go to help people in need then tell us how you would reorganize the government’s expenditures. Perhaps we can start with our bloated military budget?
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@Athias
How is that luck?
I explained that starting with the very next sentence. You don’t have to respond I to every sentence I write, just keep reading.
Taxing inheritances because you believe wealth should be excluded--even from one's family--to just the person who generates it, much less provide an "offering" to everyone else should one decide to share his/her wealth with his/her family, is nothing more than jelly for my PB&J sandwich.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
First off, if you read the thread you would know that my position is the first few million (I said 5 earlier) should not be taxed at all, so no one is saying wealth should be excluded from anyone.
Second, what does that even mean? We’re not talking about excluding people from wealth, we’re talking about whether the wealth generated by one individual should flow tax free to their beneficiaries.
Do you have an actual position of the estate tax, or like I asked for in the OP, a substantive reason for opposing it?
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@TheUnderdog
Do you have any serious reasons why you hate Biden?
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@Athias
The man intends to bequeath all of his possessions including his wealth to those by whom he is survived, i.e. wife and three children. Is this luck?
Yes, it’s the poster child example of luck.
We’re not talking about the man who made his fortune, we’re talking about the people who did nothing to help build it but yet will reap all the rewards.
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@Greyparrot
Your faith in DC borders on the fanatical religious.
I’m sorry your inability to comprehend logic and how it applies when discussing the impacts that various government policies would have on the overall health of a society leads you to no other option but to reduce everything down to faith in other people and then project that cartoonish oversimplification on everyone else’s arguments. But keep trying, I promise one day you’ll be able to form your own thoughts. I believe in you.
The government isn't the only way to fund things. I've seen much better road service funding from online "adopt a pothole" programs.
If these programs work why haven’t they funded our infrastructure?
In the age of go-fund-me, surely there has to be a better way to pay the road crews.
Well considering that every person in our society benefits in one way or another from roads and bridges, imagine if we found a fair and equitable way to ensure that everyone chipped in rather than relying only on volunteers who were willing to part with their hard earned money while others who would benefit from those contributions not pay a dime?
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@Greyparrot
I didn’t ask about DC lobbyists, I asked why people like you are so obsessed with Hunter Biden. That’s ok though, I had no expectation of getting a serious answer out of you.
This idea that we’re all operating under this notion that the people in DC care about people like us is just plain stupid. People in DC care about their political careers, taking care of us is how they keep it. I don’t understand what about that is so difficult for you.
Is this 37% thing supposed to be an insult? I don’t get it. 37% is the lowest approval rating Biden has seen, his average is still in the 40’s. Trump never got above 37 except for a brief moment during the “rally around the flag” effect when Covid first broke.
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@Greyparrot
Since corporations never die, there is no death tax for the rich that consolidate their wealth into corporations, which is why Hunter Biden didn't have to pay $250,000 in taxes for a etch-a-sketch.
Why is the political right so obsessed with Hunter Biden?
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@Polytheist-Witch
The death tax doesn't go to poor people it goes to the f****** government who keep those people in poverty
How does the government keep people in poverty?
That somehow taking money from Bill Gates is going to end up in the hands of the poor it won't it'll end up in the hands of the government and they'll still decide who gets what.
So the money won’t end up in the hands of the people, it’ll end up in the hands of the government who will decide who’s hands it ends up in…
Uh, yeah. Taking out that first part which made absolutely no sense, that’s how it works. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
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@Polytheist-Witch
do I think people that are poor should have the opportunity to make more money or have a living wage hell yes. Do I think the Rockefeller should get to pass their money down to their kids without their kids having to pay the tax on it when it's already had the tax paid on it several times hell yes
You’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.
In a capitalistic society such as the one we live in, wealth begets wealth. In other words the more money you have the easier it is to make money. You want to open up a McDonald’s? They won’t even consider helping you unless you have $5M dollars set to the side, so that opportunity just like many others only exist for the well off.
It’s not an accident that as time passes the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow. That’s how capitalism works. The only way to intercede without “punishing success” is through the estate tax to stop generations from building onto the wealth of prior generations while the poor and middle classes get squeezed out entirely. You can’t claim everyone should have a reasonable opportunity to succeed and be for the prevalence of generational wealth, those two things are in direct conflict with eachother.
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@Greyparrot
The cornerstone of any enduring society is to punish productive people and reward unproductive people.
How did you manage to qualify the inheritors of someone else’s fortune as “productive people”?
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@thett3
What do you think the threshold should be, and what should the tax rate be? Generally speaking, I know you're not writing a policy paper
I would start the tax on estates worth about $5M (which is where is was before the Trump tax cuts) and make it progressive after that. Maybe 20% on the next $5M, 40% after that, etc. I wouldn’t cap it till like 80 or maybe even 90%.
I'm not super against it but a big part of my opposition comes from something nobody else seems to share, which is that I'm against double taxation.
But it’s not double taxation. You would be dead so the people who stand to inherit your estate are paying it, which makes sense since they’re about to be given a whole bunch of money which is when taxes always kick in.
I also believe generational wealth is a good thing that should be encouraged and not discouraged.
How is it a good thing for wealth to be enjoyed by people who didn’t earn it? Isn’t that the complete opposite of conservative principals?
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Democrats recent proposal to tax wealth has drawn a lot of criticism lately, much of it I agree with. I have never been a fan of taxing someone based on their worth, especially since most of that is just paper wealth and could never actually be realized.
While much of the idea here is to raise money for democrats proposals, I think the greater problem democrats are trying to get at is how to reduce our massive wealth gap in a way that would benefit all Americans. To me I find the solution to this to be quite simple… significantly raise the estate tax.
Of course every time democrats talk about this it gets shot down after republicans attack it by calling it “the death tax” which sounds awfully spooky. My question is, is there anyone who can provide an actual meaningful defense of not raising estate taxes? I mean if you’re all about personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, isn’t being rich off of someone else’s money the exact opposite of your stated core philosophy?
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@Greyparrot
Biden actually believes in democracy. Biden isn’t running around the country claiming millions of illegals voted with no evidence. Biden isn’t out there calling the free press “the enemy of the American people”. Biden isn’t trying to claim he can’t be investigated because he was president.
Read a history book, learn what an authoritarian actually is, then take note of the remarkable similarities between it and Trump while taking note of how Biden is the exact opposite.
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@Bones
I'm surprised you're really contesting this. Tell me, what is the point of a penis and vagina.
I’m surprised you don’t understand what it means to ask what “the point” of something is.
And that makes rape moral?
Nope, never said that. Never implied it either.
Do you want to debate me about abortion? I'm not a fan of this forum back and forth.
I’d be open to it. When I began pushing back on your use of “purpose” I expected you might go down the God path, to which we would have found our fundamental disagreement. If you really are going to hold to this idea that the purpose of sex is procreation without invoking the supernatural then I would certainly take that debate.
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@Bones
imagine the rate of rape was 97%, and no one was following the law.
A country of 97% rapists wouldn’t outlaw rape.
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@Bones
The evolutionary reason we have sex is to reproduce to multiply the gene pool, in hopes of creating a useful mutation.
You didn’t answer the question. You claimed it was non controversial that the purpose to sex is procreation to which I challenged you to support that claim. You didn’t because you can’t, because evolution doesn’t have a purpose, no one is sitting down and mapping out how our species will evolve.
Purpose isn’t an inherent attribute, it’s attributed by a thinking agent. If your purpose to having sex is to procreate then good for you and by extension good for the survival of the human species, that’s doesn’t make procreation “the purpose” of sex to anyone but you.
Your link is backwards. Throughout most of human history we didn’t have sex in order to procreate, we procreated as a result of our enjoyment of having sex. There were plenty of other species who didn’t have such a desire, they all died off. In fact 99.9% of every species that’s ever walked the face of the earth is extinct.
So back to the beginning, the desire to have sex is basic human nature, yet your position is that sex should only be for procreation. How do you square denying such a basic element of human nature, especially one for which we would not otherwise be here?
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@Greyparrot
This video is a joke. All it does is take everything democrats want to do and say Venezuela did it too, then pretends that this means democrats want to turn America into Venezuela.
What makes Venezuela Venezuela is the fact that their democracy was taken over entirely by an authoritarian who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the people or their right to govern themselves. And what is so remarkable is how the same people who constantly use Venezuela as the big bad bogeyman support a politician who’s damn near a clone of the man responsible, just dumber.
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@Greyparrot
Go on then, what else they are for that is so repulsive it justifies voting for a party who’s sole focus is to acquiesce to the man baby at Mar-A-Lago?
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@RationalMadman
Do you not know how natural selection and evolution work?
Please explain why you felt the need to lecture me on sex so that I can explain to you what part of the conversation you completely missed. Thanks.
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@thett3
I’ve spent exactly 0 hours looking at the specifics so I couldn’t tell you, but given history and the feeling of our current political climate, if I had to put money on a particular result yours would be a pretty good one to go with.
Maybe it’s nativity, maybe it’s wishful thinking, maybe it’s confirmation bias, but a big part of me still thinks the dems will hold both or at the very least one house. I just find it astonishing that on one side we have a party fighting for infrastructure, minimum wage, paid leave, voting rights, etc. - things that would actually improve the lives of their voters, meanwhile on the other we have “let’s go Brandon” and “the election was stolen” yet the latter is poised to win. I should have lost faith in this country long ago, yet somehow I still keep thinking it will come to its senses.
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@Greyparrot
Like forcing a woman to labor for 9 months?
Telling someone they must give up a portion of their income and telling someone they must allow their body to be used as a cocoon while another human being moves into it are not the same thing.
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@Bones
The purpose of sex drive is to expand the gene pool.
Demonstrate this claim. Who decided this?
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@949havoc
Every president since Truman has promised to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Every one. Only one did it: Donald Trump.
That’s because there are political realities that have to be dealt with that are much harder than giving campaign speeches, but Trump is too stupid and has far too short an attention span to absorb any of it, so he just does.
No Democrat or Republican President dared meet NoKo face-to-face until Trump did. That’s how diplomacy starts.
I don’t agree with ignoring NK, but Trump’s meetings with KJU were a complete national embarrassment. He got nothing out of it except a photo op and a bizarre live fest with yet another dictator.
No President, Roosevelt through Obama, Republican or Democrat. Passed a tax cut package the size of Trump’s. His corporate tax cut was 43%, largest in a century.
I don’t consider a $2T package giving 81% of the benefits to the top 1% an accomplishment to brag about.
No modern president since Roosevelt, at least, has achieved the unemployment rate reached by Trump.
The unemployment rate continued to fall under Trump at the same rate it has been falling the previous 7 years under Obama.
On so on…
There will always be a way to rationalize every policy move any politician makes. The question is what the individual personally brought to the table. Trump is among many other things, the most divisive president we have ever had and our democracy is in the brink of total collapse largely because of him. Every republican in congress knows it too other than a very small handful of morons like MTG.
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@Bones
It is in the human nature for people to have sex to procreate in hopes of expanding the gene pool. It is not in the human nature to procreate without the create part.
No, it’s not. Our drive to have sex is built into us, it is not something born out of a personal desire to procreate. If it were we would not be having this conversation.
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@Greyparrot
I'm only explaining why a "right to body" could never be such a thing in a functioning society.
But you’re not talking about the same thing and relying on a slippery slope fallacy. The right to your own body doesn’t mean that obligations cannot be imposed upon you. The right that I’m talking about is a thing in our society and has been for a very long time, at least when it comes to any and everything else except abortion.
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@Greyparrot
and highlights the manufactured crisis President Biden created
Can you explain, in actual policy terms how Joe Biden created this? Thanks.
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@TheUnderdog
Being unprincipled is inevitible and acceptable if you can find a way to justify it.
The idea of being principled means that you live your life by set of fundamental values that you have essentially turned into rules. But life doesn’t always give you that choice. Your “rules” will sometimes clash and you will be forced to choose. That fact has no bearing on whether you believe in those values and whether you follow them.
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@Bones
It is my position that people should not do anything which leads to the death of human lives.
Then your position entails denying one of the most fundamental elements of human nature.
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@Greyparrot
It would probably make child support unconstitutional too. Imagine a world where you can't force a body to labor for another body against their will.
The government isn’t commandeering the man’s body, no one is forcing the man to lay down on a table while he unwillingly donates a kidney. He has the full right to his body, he can come up with that money any way he wants. What they’re forcing is the man to give up a portion of his income so that other tax payers don’t have to. It’s not the same thing.
Like I’ve said many times before, the abortion debate will always come down to whether you see the fetus as a human being. Every argument after that will be painted by your answer.
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@Bones
What's a better deterrence, knowing that you can have sex as many times as you want and abort as many babies as you want, or knowing that you have to go through a full term pregnancy each time you have sex irresponsibly?
Why do you think deterrence should be the primary goal? Is it your position that people shouldn’t have sex?
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@Greyparrot
Wouldn't that make the draft unconstitutional?
No
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@TheUnderdog
Twitter doesn’t have any such rule, which is quite ironic considering they’re not the ones claiming to be the champions of free speech
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@cristo71
Thing is, it’s not simply our society at large creating the consequences; it is the most vocal, the most over-sensitive elements of our society trying hardest to silence speech they disagree with. Those who have been bullied are now becoming bullies themselves, which doesn’t solve problems; it merely trades one problem for another.
Then fight back against their influence with valid arguments, don’t pretend your constitutional rights are being violated.
Speaking generally of course.
I agree that cancel culture and the woke left have gone overboard. But this whole freedom of speech thing seems like a mindless reflexive reaction and/or childish obstinance rather than a movement.
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@ludofl3x
Ok, but that's not first amendment concerns. That's shifting in culture tolerance, which is not and should not be subject to legislation.
Exactly. It never ceases to amaze me how the same who claim to be advocating for freedom of speech are actually arguing against it.
If you say something and other people stand up to it, fighting back against their right to do so it is fighting for the removal of their freedom of speech.
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@TheUnderdog
Wouldn’t it have been much simpler to just say that a person has a right to life but not the right to someone else’s body?
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@cristo71
Your conclusion doesn’t follow your anecdotal setup. *scratching my head*…
It’s not a syllogism, I’m just giving the latest example.
Almost every example in recent months regarding freedom of speech is just as absurd, whether we’re talking about Twitter enforcing it’s ToS against Trump or cancel culture. The point is that this popularized pro freedom of speech rhetoric is really just advocacy of one’s right to say whatever they want without any consequence from society. That’s not how it works.
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@Greyparrot
Lol, you sent me to a propaganda opinion site to correct me on your lack of economic knowledge regarding dollar valuation?
That’s why I’m telling you to learn how to use Google. I picked one out of the dozens of articles that popped up. I’ve never heard of that specific site, that’s actual why I picked it - because people like yourself tend to dismiss out of hand any information that comes from any source you have been trained to think of as fake news so I picked one I thought you might not recognize. Of course, you did and so instead of talking about the content you attack the source. Why am I not surprised?
You realize you can have product shortages and LOWER prices as well depending on how much the dollar is valued?
Of course, what does that have to do with 2022? When was the last time we had a supply chain disruption anywhere in the scale of what is happening now?
Whatever, it's the 38 percenters like you that I rely on for my investments, and your stubbornness gives me comfort in my hedge investments against the policies you support.
In case you already forgot, this conversation began because you tried to argue that the inflation we are seeing is a product of Biden’s policies. I’m pointing out why that is complete nonsense. Even if the supply chain argument is entirely wrong, that’s doesn’t change the point.
Your initial argument was QE, which exploded in March 2020 and has been rising slowly and steadily since. No change when Biden took office. Your second argument was confidence, then you went on to explain how investors like yourself are the ones putting your money elsewhere - the literal thing you say is causing the inflation. So both of your arguments fail.
Let me know when you have something productive to say other than “dUh your stupid and your stupidity is making me money”.
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Don Jr when asked about Trump’s new social media site Truth Social:
“What we are trying to do is create a big tent, an open and free network for people to be able to assert your First Amendment rights”
Yet rule #23 of the site’s terms of service states that its users may not:
“23. disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site”
Can we all just agree that freedom of speech is a nonsense issue and that when people rail against attacks on free speech in today’s culture they are full of crap?
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@Greyparrot
Shortages of products don't devalue the dollar. Oversupply of printed money and lack of confidence does.
I’m just going to leave this here for you to ignore
Whoever told you that it does is feeding you a horseload of misinformation.
It’s everywhere bro. Try using Google once in a while.
All you guys betting on DC to take care of you are like addicts walking into a Casino. You'll never win. Unless you know the dealer.
This is such a stupid talking point, please remove this from your “arsenal”. All it does is show where your mind is when it comes to these topics and makes you look ignorant.
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I didn’t say it was due to the supply chain alone, I said it was the primary reason.
QE massively jumped from March 2020 to May 2020 and has seen a steady increase ever since, so if that’s what you are blaming inflation on it would be Trump or I guess by your logic his supporters to hold responsible, not Biden.
And I can’t help not notice how self defeating your point is. You claim that another factor is lack of trust in the dollar by investors like yourself, and then tell us how your swapping your dollars for crypto. If that’s what’s driving down the dollar then you are literally attributing the problem to yourself, which makes it all the more absurd to blame Biden supporters for it.
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@sadolite
I can’t prove who won any more than I can prove who won any election that’s ever taken place, nor any more than I can prove that Australia exists. What is your point?
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@Greyparrot
The drug is tested, that’s what they do before giving it full approval.
Of course there are lines government can cross. What does that have to do with this conversation?
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@Greyparrot
If you want to know what you are “up against” its probably a good idea to start listening to what people are actually saying and stop attributing everything you disagree with to ignorance stemming from trust in DC, or something stupid like that.
The inflation we’ve experienced is primarily due to Covid related disruptions in the supply chains which has raised the cost of just about everything. Not because Biden got sworn in or whatever you are implying.
Queue your one line response, probably calling me a 38 percenter or something just as useless.
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@Greyparrot
Can the government legally mandate a vaccine?
Yes, they can. The government has done so since at least 1904, when the right of government to impose vaccines was established by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In a 7-to-2 ruling, the Court said Cambridge, Massachusetts could require all adults to be vaccinated against smallpox.…while citizens in Cambridge, Massachusetts were dying from the smallpox epidemic between 1901 and 1903, public health officials began issuing compulsory vaccination orders in efforts to reach the 90 percent vaccination rate required for herd immunity.The state went as far as closing all schools, public libraries and churches to stem the spread of the disease. Though it wasn’t a forced vaccination, those who refused to get vaccinated faced a $5 fine, which is the equivalent of $150 today.
You should use Google before responding
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I’ll go first…
1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
I get my information mostly from MSNBC (Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow), and the David Packman show on YouTube. Sometimes I’ll also watch a little CNN out the Young Turks and when I’m bored I’ll read Huffington Post. My YouTube TV also records Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, I try to watch at least one episode a week. I would watch more but I find them to be so full of crap I normally don’t make it through the episode.
2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
That’s why I come here. I think the best way to test your views is to put them up against someone who opposes them. I will also do a search anytime I’m not sure what to make of a claim, I generally don’t accept anything until I’ve given the opposing side an opportunity to rebut. I think pod casts provide the best conversions, I’ll watch a debate like at Politicon but those tend to be more theater than anything else.
3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
Blatant hypocrisy for one. But also when one repeats claims to which they have no reasonable argument to support. Like when someone claims the 2020 election was stolen, then talks about vote dumps or states changing their laws last minute. I mean seriously, just say you believe the dear leader because they told you so.
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“Think for yourself” is a theme I’ve come across quite a bit lately, the implication of course being that you are not doing so but rather just regurgitating what other sources have told you.
This always amuses me. Take Covid for example. Is anyone on this site a doctor or scientist? Has anyone on this site rolled up their sleeves in a lab and performed the experiments themself? I’m betting not, I’m betting instead that the overwhelming majority of us get our information from sources we trust telling us how to interpret the data, or at the very least reports that someone else we trust performed.
In fact nearly everything we think we know, especially when it comes to politics is gained this way. It’s almost entirely about who we trust. There’s little way around that.
So with that said I have a few question for the group:
1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
And BTW, if you haven’t told us where you get your information from please do not jump in here and criticize anyone else. You have no standing to do so.
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@sadolite
No one knows who won. You are told who won. The next election will be just as rife with fraud and incompetence.
No one knows that there was fraud and incompetence. You are told the election was rife with fraud an incompetence, yet you are just as confident as you need to be to tell others what happened as if you are somehow different.
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@ILikePie5
Delta came under Biden not Trump. I thought Biden was going to be the savior of COVID. What has he done different? Impose vaccine mandates. Who’s the real Nazi now?
Delta is just another wave of Covid, which Trump monumentally screwed up.
Still, I wasn’t blaming Trump there, I was pointing out that this is an ongoing problem Biden was handed which of course the right is now pretending is only happening because of him.
As far as him being the savior of Covid? That’s just stupid. The only reason we are still dealing with Covid is because of Trump voters who refuse to get vaccinated or cede to any precautions whatsoever to stop the spread, except taking horse dewormer that is.
As far as what Biden did differently? How about develop an actual plan to distribute the vaccines? And yes, impose mandates which are in fact working. If that makes us Nazi’s then we’ve been Nazi’s before there were Nazi’s since vaccine mandates have been around for a century now, not that facts matter.
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@Greyparrot
Ok, thanks for your 38 percenter insight.
Why do you even bother?
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