quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

Okay, my disclaimer is that I didn't watch the link.  BUT:

1. There are people whose inherited wealth makes them not need to work.  Trust fund babies, if you will.
2. Some of them (think Paris Hilton) are wastes of humanity. 
3. You believe that their wasteliness is related to their lack of need to work.
4. Your solution is for the government to tax away their inherited wealth.

This assumes that the money is the government's to take.    Even the most pro-tax people will tell you that the purpose behind raising taxes is because the government needs the money for its various projects.  The radical concept that the government decides that you should not have the money scares hell out of me.  Even worse is that the government uses taxes to execute value judgements on its part.

The government is responsible for enforcing laws that define acceptable and unacceptable behavior.  Boorish, selfish behavior is not illegal, and is punished through social means like having one's friends driven away.  As it should be.

Tax policies have been used to drive desired behavior for years - for example, the mortgage deduction helps drive real estate.  But your proposal goes way beyond that and uses tax policy for social engineering - which also scares the hell out of me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Why not just do away with taxes entirely. Sounds like you don't think Gov't worthwhile anyway. That way we will have an ever expanding economy to infiniti and everyone will be happy in your right wing world. Right?

I am not a right winger, and have never portrayed myself as such.

Frankly, at this point, I feel like we do have enough government.  I would love to see it quit growing.  Here in Colorado, TABOR is a mechanism to prevent state government from growing.  It baselines state spending at the current level, indexed for population change and inflation.  That seems to me to be eminently reasonable.  It does not prevent new programs but mandates that new programs must be paid for by redirecting funds from existing programs.  Kinda like a household that decides to buy a bigger house and must figure out where the money for it will come from.

You just proved my point. Just abolish all taxes and gov't so that we can all live out our dreams in the way we want to. Right? That way you won't have to worry if your local school district is spending an extra 10 dollars on someone else's child.

If your viewpoint isn't right wing what would you call it?

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ORIGINAL: Arpig

~FR~
Oddly enough, given my far left leanings, I am opposed to estate/inheritance taxes for the basic reason the Archer brought up...taxes have presumably already been paid on that money, and to tax it a 2nd time is in my view wrong. What a person accumulates after taxes in their life should be theirs to do what they wish with, and the Gvt has no place in the deal, there is no moral justification for what is in fact a Death Tax...such is my rather warped view from way out here on the left.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Arpig

~FR~
Oddly enough, given my far left leanings, I am opposed to estate/inheritance taxes for the basic reason the Archer brought up...taxes have presumably already been paid on that money, and to tax it a 2nd time is in my view wrong. What a person accumulates after taxes in their life should be theirs to do what they wish with, and the Gvt has no place in the deal, there is no moral justification for what is in fact a Death Tax...such is my rather warped view from way out here on the left.