SSsssooo what would you cut.???????

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

• cut foreign aid in half
• eliminate farm subsidies
• reduce the military to pre-Iraq size, bring all combat forces home from Iraq & Afghanistan
• give the Army 5 years to close half of all foreign bases
• cap Medicare growth
• reduce Social Security benefits for high income earners
• re-institute the Estate tax, but exempt the first 3 million of any estate

I agree with all but the last. I can't stand estate taxes, it's just not right that the govt can come in & grab property just because someone dies and leaves it to an heir. Much of it was already taxed.

But hey, we agree on the first few, that's a start!

[mookiemookie]

The estate tax was created way back when to prevent the rise of a landed gentry. The founding fathers had just left a country where the system was set up "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" according to North Carolina's 1784 law that abolished entailed estates. A similar law in Virginia in 1776 said that "the perpetuation of property in certain families, by means of gifts made to them in fee taille, is contrary to good policy." The idea of an estate tax was advocated by folks like Thomas Paine, Adam Smith (the father of capitalism, lest you call me a damn dirty socialist) and Thomas Jefferson. It revolves around the idea that your place in society should be earned by your own works and contributions to it, rather than by your last name.

I think it makes sense.

[Platapus]

I never understood the concept of an inheritance of money. I want my father to die in the process of spending his last dollar on himself. He earned it, I didn't.

Inheriting houses, businesses, cars, etc, I can understand, but expecting to get money from someone and not pay taxes on it is unreasonable. An inheritance is just income without doing any work to earn it.

Now I also think the inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as the inheritor's income tax. Having a separate and higher rate just for inheritances is wrong in my opinion.

If my father leaves me any "free money" like an inheritance, I will be more than happy to pay an inheritance tax. I am not losing anything, just getting a little less money I did not earn.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I never understood the concept of an inheritance of money. I want my father to die in the process of spending his last dollar on himself. He earned it, I didn't.

Inheriting houses, businesses, cars, etc, I can understand, but expecting to get money from someone and not pay taxes on it is unreasonable. An inheritance is just income without doing any work to earn it.

But the family has more right to it than any government. In this case Government is a group of people who claim that everything you do belongs to them.