H/T Ezra Klein
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Meta
I can’t say that I would have done any better than Obama did but it should be noted that what’s killed him this year is not that he’s been too far left but that he hasn’t been left enough – particularly on issues that matter to the rank and file leftist (colorful televised images of wars ending promptly and return to a non-war footing) and on issues that matter to the serious leftist opinion-makers whose writings influence the class of writers who are widely read by the rank and file (Scandinavian-style free healthcare).
Again, I can’t say that I would have been more effective than him (I don’t really care about the war thing but I was and am still entirely in favor of completely free excellent healthcare for every citizen – to be paid for by taxing inheritances at 100% beyond the 3/4s of a million mark) but I can definitely say that tens of millions of Americans who were fooled into believing that he would be effective (I hoped that he would be but am not naive and knew that it was very unlikely) and thus were apocolyptically excited by His rise to prominence, now no longer give a damn about him. His hopenchange was shown to be a threadbare thing and they see no reason to care.
I only hope that this gets through to the people who matter in congress and in the Administration and they go all Hitler on passing the world’s best healthcare bill that will cover facelifts and cryonics, regardless of the how they get it done. The “healthcare” bill that seemed likely to pass however looked more like a freebee for the insurance industry and little more. It’s no wonder so few Americans give a damn to see it passed.
Are you smoking crack? Obama’s fault has been that he’s been too conservative?
Are you smoking something that impedes your reading comprehension? We’re discussing why he’s lost support from people who were gung ho behind him, not what you – brilliant mind though you are – dislike about him.
mnuez,
If you’re not smoking crack, I think you should. You should imbibe anything that might knock your totalitarian brain out of confiscation-mode. “…taxing inheritances at 100% beyond the 3/4s of a million mark…”
I live on 40 grand a year. But I DO NOT want to live in a country where looting, power-hungry charlatans from the bowels of Chicago can steal the money and property of others to create some euro-trash state here in these United States.
And besides, they always say “soak the rich,” but eventually they get around to taking what’s mine. Excuse me while I go clean my gun. Yeesh.
Donny boy, thanks for letting it all hang out and affording me a laugh at your expense. Nothing personal, I’m sure you’re a fine fellow and a real nice guy but your comment really was funny. 🙂
There will always be a loophole for the very rich to avoid confiscatory taxes, which is one of the reasons why the federal tax code is so complex. Very broadly–though not inaccurately–speaking, tax hikes, like tax cuts, affect mostly the middle classes. In the 2004 presidential race, the Kerry campaign was desperate NOT to release Teresa’s latest tax return. They didn’t want the peons to know that she only paid twelve and a half percent tax on five percent of her income. $750,000. Chump change for her. A fortune to most of us.
Not being an attorney or an accountant (thank God!) I have no more knowledge than the general understanding that what you say is accurate, but as we both know, only accurate to a point. The super wealthy own the world and everyone in it and thus have some influence on how the tax code works and how offenders ought to be punished. Of course however no one’s influence or power is absolute and there are loopholes in the laws of world-ownership too such that it’s not impossible to imagine a government that would take these laws seriously and ensure that most of the loopholes were plugged up. As I’ve noted elsewhere though it would be silly of us to discuss how precisely such a committed government would close these loopholes being as such a government isn’t likely to exist any time soon.
I was sloppy and used parallel language. I have sinned before thee and before the lord. Could I emend a sentence with a word I would do so:
“such that it’s not impossible to imagine a government that would take these taxlaws seriously”
And pardon the flippancy but we really are having a conversation of, sadly, no consequence.
Well, of course the super-wealthy own the world. When hasn’t that been true? That was part of my point. The other part of my point is that very often the super-wealthy want me to shoulder their tax burden, or part of it. And it’s almost invariably a super-wealthy liberal who wants me to pay his/her taxes. Why do you think Warren Buffet favors an inheritance tax? Because his heirs will never have to pay it. On the other hand, leave YOUR heirs a house worth 200 grand and they’ll be taxed up the wazoo.
As to the inconsequentiality of the current discourse…true, we may not affect (or effect) policy, nor count for much in the grand scheme of things, but these conversations DO have an eighteenth-century salon-like charm about them.
I shall now ring for tea, plus stronger libations for those ladies and gentlemen who desire them. Excuse me while I pull the bell to summon the footman.
Mark me for the stronger libations then as I am much wearied of sobriety. Forsooth!
Oh and while I believe that you and I are in great measure in agreement, you did let one sentence slip that really just won’t go. I’m surprised in fact that your editorial team let it through. The bit about Buffet. I’ll jot this to carelessness but there’s a slight chance it ought to be noted in the “Uninformed” column of the ledger. Buffets trillions won’t be taxed in any case on account of his choice not to bequeath them, not to mention the fact that tax-wise Buffet has always been vocally opposed to the loopholes for his class and has palpably done his part not to utilize them too egregiously.)
Great video!
I was and am still entirely in favor of completely free excellent healthcare for every citizen – to be paid for by taxing inheritances at 100% beyond the 3/4s of a million mark.
Contradict yourself much?
Why piss around with declaring that you want the gov’t to provide or arrange for FREE and EXCELLENT health care, when the gov’t can go to the root of the problem and just make diseases and injuries illegal? The latter would no doubt provide better benefits since it doesn’t require socialism, a philosophy well-known for never being able to accomplish any of its stated goals. Since I’m such a complex person, it’s not actually contradictory that I also favor forcing anyone who has more money than I to buy me a nice vintage 500cc Norton Manx.
@mnuez
Mayhap I should rephrase. I think, sirrah, that you make a distinction without a difference. Buffett has channeled his billions into charitable foundations controlled by his children. Which is a way of avoiding inheritance taxes open to very few of us. So we’re left with the original point that someone has to pay them, and it’s not going to be the super-rich like Buffet.
As for the strong libation, will you have a posset, a stirrup cup, or a syllabub?
mneuz: no one finances anything much that way, for the obvious reason that if you announced such a tax structure, suddenly Luxembourg or Bahamas or some other tax haven would “own” most of the US. Capital is mobile, that is why the deadweight costs of capital taxes are so high.
Besides, the US currently gets a huge benefit from being the world’s largest tax haven (via not taxing interest on foreign holdings), so no Administration is going to mess with that.
Moreover, the US already has a very progressive tax system in that the the top 1% of US taxpayers pay 40% of all US Federal taxes.
As for this “not left enough/too conservative” commentary, it is all so imprecise and woolly it seems to say a lot more about the commentators than what is being commented on. Nevertheless, in a country where 58% of those polled want less government services, self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by 38% to 25% while 37% think Obama is too liberal and only 7% too conservative, there does not seem to be an lot of untapped voter sentiment too his “left”. (Activists, of course, might be different.)