Quote:
Originally posted by taxwonk
It's largely the fact that I've given the nuanced, detailed explanations a million times already. I'm not in favor of wealth redistribution. I'm opposed to people who don't deserve them getting tax breaks.
I don't think that CSX dividends (earned by someone else's grandaprents maybe, mine ran a drugstore) should be taxed at a lower rate than the salary I earn or the hourly wage a stockboy earns at Wa-Mart.
I also think it's bullshit to try and characterize capital gains as money that has already been taxed. You don't get taxed on what you put in, that's called basis and you recover it before teh first penny is taxed as capital gain. I don't think we need to provide an incentive for people to make money. And I think that if we do, then we should provide me an incentive to show up every day and earn my paycheck.
The last point, by the way, is one of the things we agree on. Steve Schwartzmann, Henry Kravis, and Leon Black are getting a break on their paychecks. We both think that's wrong.
You were right, there are a lot of things we agree on and a lot we disagree on. You've seen me say all this before. You should know better than to lump me in with somebody who thinks that every family in America with an income over $250,000 should be forced to buy a car and a color tv for a Mom on welfare with 15 kids.
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Taking away the lower capital gains rate is an unfair wealth redistribution. No matter how you slice it, it is penalizing success, killing the margins for people who have accumulated capital, and for what? To what glorious end? To fuck up Wall Street and hand the money to the government to waste?
It's also insanely reckless considering our country's awful savings rate. Are you really suggesting we should force more older people back into the work force? Are you really suggesting we should carve more money for our "government" out of retirees' hides? The last thing we need to be doing in this country is taking money AWAY from people who have diligently planned and saved in part based on the knowledge that a large part of their reitrement income would be taxed at a discounted rate. You're hurting the older members of the middle class. I don't see how you can say that is fair.
BTW, I did not lump you into the group of people desiring HDTV for welfare mothers. You've debated with me enough to know that. Your appetite for progressive taxation is far from that, but I still say its a form of wealth redistribution.
