Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Rubs to religious inconography in response to tax post: 1 (arguably 2, with the use of the plural)

Clinton references: 1

References to Democratic party: 3

References to death/evil: 4

Substantive response to double taxation: 0

Not bad. Sounds like you've hit the mark pretty accurately, Wonk.

What does it feel like to be consumed with bias and hate?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
The demos are celebrating death by a confiscatory act of oppression on the survivors. That is the evil. The Rs support the living, i.e. the survivors.

So its a survivors tax, then, not a death tax.

Here I thought the Dems were going to destroy death, and got all excited.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by baltassoc
So its a survivors tax, then, not a death tax.

Here I thought the Dems were going to destroy death, and got all excited.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

It is a tax predicated on death. Of course the tax attorneys and accountants support it out of self interest, and as a result the death of hardworking entreprenuers becomes a celebratory event for them. Much like the state killing of Terri Schiavo.

Sad.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
No, that is not the truth. Try getting out of your insular upper middle class suburban gated enclave and mingle with the real people, the middle class that does exist and maybe you would learn something. I live and socialise amongst the middle class, the working class, and you could not be further from the truth. On a daily basis I go into the worst neighbourhoods in my city and offer educational hope and social justive and there is a thriving culture of opportunity and ownership in our midst, but its not in the demos interest to promote it lest voters stray from the plantation. It is nice to see you perpetuating the lies of the Sharpton/Jackson/Pelosi wing of the looney left though.

I live in a "middle class" community. My neighbor one side is a contractor and my neighbor on the other side is a car salesman. The guy a couple doors down works for an amousement company and sets up, services those blow up moonwalk things for kids' birthday parties.

These people have houses that are half-empty because they can't afford to furnish them fully. They shop at places like Wal-Mart and Target because they can't afford to go anywhere else. They take vacations every two or three years at most.

Why? because the only way they have of accumulating or building wealth is their home. They find themselves continually squeezed. I also see how quickly houses turn over, because all it takes is one little slip, like an unexpected medical emergency or a family member losing a job for their whole dream to come crashing down around them.

Refresh my recollection, please. Tell me again how I can just explain to them that if you don't have to pay taxes on dividends and the estate tax is eliminated, their lives will improve, even though they are about to lose the houses they can barely afford now because they won't be able to cut the nut without the mortgage interest deduction.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Right. I always get that name mixed up.

That's because it's really created very few jobs.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
What does it feel like to be consumed with bias and hate?

PLF, I think here we have the Irony POTY, yes?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
It is a tax predicated on death. Of course the tax attorneys and accountants support it out of self interest, and as a result the death of hardworking entreprenuers becomes a celebratory event for them. Much like the state killing of Terri Schiavo.

Sad.

True. A repeal of the estate tax would've coaxed that woman out of bed and, as Brother Frist diagnosed, gotten her just one Pilates class away from the cast of Stomp.

[Replaced_Texan]

Penske, Slave, is the Governator running or simply walking quickly away from Bush?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rebuffed requests from leading California Democrats that he break from his special election campaign long enough to ask President Bush for more federal money.

The Republican governor said he was too busy before the Nov. 8 vote to meet with the president during Bush's two-day stop in Southern California on Thursday and Friday.

But Schwarzenegger also said he was not happy that Bush was raising money in California so close to the special election.

"We would have appreciated it if he had done his fundraising after Nov. 8," Schwarzenegger said Wednesday. The governor has yet to reach his $50 million fundraising goal to promote his ballot initiatives, which would curb the power of the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Penske, Slave, is the Governator running or simply walking quickly away from Bush?

Leesten, you little girly-girl, Da Terminator valks avay from no one! It is time for this GOP official to get out of Los Angeles -- which is MY backyard -- and stop closing down Sunset Boulevard!

[SlaveNoMore]

Replaced_Texan
Penske, Slave, is the Governator running or simply walking quickly away from Bush?

Striding

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
What does it feel like to be consumed with bias and hate?

I really can't believe the level of hate spewed at you. Is it ironic or sad that in a post with no content other than vile invective, a poster implies your posts lack substance?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
The truth is that there is such a wide (and growing) gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country that there is hardly anything left of the middle class any more. The middle class used to be the cops and the office managers, and the average lawyers, who could afford a modest house and maybe two cars, one used, and possibly a two-week vacation every year. These people are almost all gone now. They haven't disappeared completely, but they are shrinking rapidly as a demographic.

I have been hearing this every year since Reagan got elected in 1980. I don't think it is true. I think it is just a political spin used by the left to still find criticism when the economy is growing. A way to find fault with capitalism when it is succeeding. The trick is like this: If I make $100 a year and you make $1000 dollars a year and each of our incomes goes up by ten percent then I make $110 and you make a 1100 a year. The gap between us has widened. The wealthier the economy the wider the gaps just because you are dealing with bigger numbers.

When they use these stats it implies that the rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer. That is not the case. The only stat that really has any significance is look to are every quartile of income and see if people are getting better off. As long as the prospects of the bottom fourth are getting better who cares how much the rich are getting. That is just political exploitation of people's envy.

As long as everyones incomes are rising who cares how much the rich are getting. Unless, of course, you can figure out a way to tax them without hampering growth so you can decrease the tax burden on the bottom half.

[Gattigap]

TNR has a long article on the GOP detailing the new scramble for the Post-Bush era, improbably beginning with 3 years left in Bush's term.

An interesting read thoughout, with view of McCainiacs, and the ascendant thoughts of Gingrich. This in particular caught my eye, however.

• The demographics of the GOP also make a hard-right run tempting. Recently, pollster Tony Fabrizio has been asking Republican voters whether their most important goal "is to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of its citizens" or "to promote traditional values by protecting traditional marriage and the life of the unborn." In his most recent survey, 34 percent of Republicans take the freedom position and 49 percent take the values position. "Every time I've stratified out the Republican Party, we've come up with roughly 45 to 50 percent of the party that falls into the category of being theocrats," he says. That's right, half of Republicans are Republicans not because they want to reduce the size of government but because of gay marriage and abortion. (And Fabrizio reports that the 49 percent is far more homogenous in its views than the 34 percent.) Becoming the king of that 49 percent in a time of conservative frustration with Bush and no dominant establishment candidate could pay dividends. The key is distinguishing oneself. "Prayer in school, abortion, gay marriage. What's the next thing? All those are old hat," says Fabrizio, who, it should be said, takes a dim view of this strategy. "What's it going to be, speaking in tongues?"

Let the parsing of the poll begin.

Gattigap

[Hank Chinaski]

lat night I attended an open house at my kid's school. the Philosphy class went ahead as if it was just another class.

The topic was "Should evolution AND Creationism be taught in Biology Class." The fellow traveler my liberal district has empowered to attempt and brainwash my children, told us of Schools, as she put it, "in - well I'm sure you can guess in which states where they don't teach evolution at all, but only teach Creationism." Now i didn't call bullshit, but I don't think that true is it?

Anyway her impartial prompts kept coming back to be asking the one religous kid in the class "doesn't it violate separation of Church/ state to teach creationism?"

So i finally ask her "What was the purpose of the separation, and in partiucular in schools?" She says we don't want to force a religion on people and if we teach Jesus to a class that is 90% Christian it's not fair to the other 10%." So then i had her-
"But how is that different than teaching evolution to a class that includes this young man who doesn't want to hear it?"

Ole' Stalin had no answer.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by taxwonk
You're worrying about the rising cost of private schools, you wear $140 shirts, you're a DINK household, and you say you're not rich? Try running that past the cleaning crew in your office or the manger at your grocery store and see what they think.

The truth is that there is such a wide (and growing) gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country that there is hardly anything left of the middle class any more. The middle class used to be the cops and the office managers, and the average lawyers, who could afford a modest house and maybe two cars, one used, and possibly a two-week vacation every year. These people are almost all gone now. They haven't disappeared completely, but they are shrinking rapidly as a demographic.

Did I say I was middle class? No. I'm upper middle class. But thats not rich. I'm a few hundred grand a year away from rich, and that chasm is a huge one to bridge...

Two week vacation? I don't know anyone, rich or poor, who can swing that gig anymore.

How do you cure wealth disparity long term? You can't do it. Its impossible. Wealth disparity is a natural consequence of capitalism. Capitalism is our system. Is it imperfect? Yes, but what's the option? Wealth redistribution? That's socialism. "Progressive taxation" is a soft way of saying "force the better off to give money to the less well off.” Taxes pay for the state - for infrastructure, for minimum benefits such as welfare.

Taxes are not the social reengineering tool which the Left seems to think they are