You don't want to believe it. You want to have faith in humanity and a more positive outlook on the world. But there comes a point where you can't make any more excuses or look for the faint silver lining. Today I had to admit that the only explanation for the behavior of the Democrats and the Obama administration is that they are deliberately trying to destroy the US economy and bring about a total economic collapse, presumably to use as a pretext for the implementation of complete central state control of our society.
There really is no other explanation. I've tried to excuse them as inept and ideologically misguided, but it's gone on too long and it's reached the point where their mismanagement of the economy is so gross and so ridiculous that it can only be explained as intentional. I hate to use the dreaded "T" word, but the grim truth is that they are engaged in treason against the United States. They are laying the groundwork for a political coup which will overthrow our constitution and the rule of law using an economic collapse which they have deliberately engineered as the justification for tyranny.
The latest example of this is the passage of an extension of the Estate Tax in the House of Representatives. The economy was scheduled to get a big boost in 2010 when this extremely regressive, job-destroying tax was set to expire. Now the Democrats plan to continue the tax at a rate of somewhere between 35% and 55% depending on the outcome of the Senate bill. Estates below $3.5 million are exempted in the House bill, but that limit may be substantially lowered by the Senate.
As was debated at length when the Bush administration sought to lower and eventually eliminate the Estate Tax, the harm which this tax does is devastating on two levels.
First, on the purely individual level, it destroys small businesses and in particular family farms. With the estate tax so high, family-owned businesses and farms which have little cash on hand and have property as their main asset find themselves forced to shut down and sell off part or all of that property to pay the tax bill. When there is more than one heir, this becomes the only way to resolve the need to split assets among the heirs and also satisfy the government. That means the end of that business and the jobs which it may have provided. The impact is also devastating for families whose estates are property rich but cash poor. If the family's assets are tied up in land or valuable family heirlooms or other real property it may be necessary to sell off the family's heritage to pay the tax bill. Should I be forced to sell my parents' furniture and the art they've collected over the years, including the bed my great-grandmother was born in, and family portraits in order to keep the house in which I grew up? That just seems needlessly cruel.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - roger nowosielski
". . .using an economic collapse which they have deliberately engineered . . ."
That's quite a charge!
2 - roger nowosielski
Talking about conspiratorial theories, with respect to which Mr. Nalle is dead-set against.
3 - Mark Saleski
i used to merely disagree with you, but this incessant conjugation of fox news is beneath you. or maybe it's not.
4 - roger nowosielski
And since there is a 3.5 million exemption, what's the big deal? Unless the idea is to perpetuate the class of filthy rich whose main purpose in life, let's face it, is to get richer still.
But of course, we're talking here about the most productive members of the society, on whose largesse we all must depend. The idea that wealth necessarily coincides with, and implies, productivity and entrepreneurial spirit, rather than what's more often than not a parasitic existence, is another myth proclaiming freedom and liberty to Everyman but in actuality reserved for the propertied class.
And consider the lament:
"Should I be forced to sell my parents' furniture and the art they've collected over the years, including the bed my great-grandmother was born in, and family portraits in order to keep the house in which I grew up? That just seems needlessly cruel."
I don't think you'll ever be in that position, Mr. Nalle. Just borrow money against your estate so you can keep your heirlooms.
5 - roger nowosielski
". . . this incessant conjugation of fox news . . ."
"Regurgitation" is another term.
6 - Dr Dreadful
He's either being deliberately provocative or he's finally gone off the deep end. I honestly don't know which is the more probable explanation for this piece of paranoid waffle.
7 - Dave Nalle
And since there is a 3.5 million exemption, what's the big deal?
Roger, do you have any idea how little real property it takes to reach that $3.5 milion mark?
Unless the idea is to perpetuate the class of filthy rich whose main purpose in life, let's face it, is to get richer still.
Which they do by investing and operating businesses, but I guess that's a bad thing.
And you bring up another point here which I should have mentioned - the deliberate encouragement and stoking of vicious class envy, which seems to be another objective of the Democrats.
But of course, we're talking here about the most productive members of the society, on whose largesse we all must depend. The idea that wealth necessarily coincides with, and implies, productivity and entrepreneurial spirit, rather than what's more often than not a parasitic existence, is another myth proclaiming freedom and liberty to Everyman but in actuality reserved for the propertied class.
You don't become a wealthy parasite at the level of a few million dollars. That's the wealth level of those who are indeed truly productive.
Dave
8 - roger nowosielski
As regards your last point, I totally agree. My sister and brother-in-law, both MDs and still working, have six million dollars worth of assets and they're barely upper-middle class. Can't afford a full-time domestic.
9 - roger nowosielski
The point still remains, Dave, that ingenuity and wealth don't necessarily coincide. People like John D. Rockefeller have started from scratch, not from inherited fortunes.
One might as well argue in the opposite direction, namely, that ambition and desire to succeed, American style, are the motivational factors par excellence. Which is one reason why we speak of some people as having been born with a silver spoon.
How did George Dubya, for example, contribute to the well-being of the economy? By buying the Rangers?
10 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
We Dems are "deliberately" committing treason?
Welcome to the ranks of the silly, wacked-out conspiracy theorists, Dave.
I thought you were better than this. I guess I was wrong.
11 - Glenn Contrarian
For all, on the 'death tax':
The estate tax was enacted in 1916 with broad public approval. Early supporters of estate taxes included Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Andrew Carnegie.
In 2009, the 'death tax' applied ONLY to those whose estates were worth 3.5 million dollars or more, and the top tax rate was 45%.
The 2001 tax act will repeal the estate tax for one year (2010) and then readjust it in 2011 to the year 2002 exemption level with a 2001 top rate. In other words, it will reset to affect estates of $1 million or more, with a top rate of 55%.
And it should be noted that the legislation driving this 'extension' of the death tax is the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001...which was passed on June 7th, 2001 under a majority-REPUBLICAN congress and signed into law by a REPUBLICAN president!
But Dave just knows this is really a treasonous, deliberate plot by the Democrats!
12 - Christine
Dave, do you think this is like the "Cloward-Piven Strategy"?
13 - roger nowosielski
But good ole Teddy is Dave's hero. What goes?
14 - roger nowosielski
For those not in the know.
It's kind of cynical of you, Christine. Do you really think the Democrats are that perfidious? That's giving human beings more credit than they deserve.
15 - handyguy
There's been a substantial estate tax for decades. Through economic good times and bad. This is not a new development, but a continuation of what has been the status quo for a generation or two...with higher exemptions now!
Objecting to the estate tax [proud of you for not using the usual pejorative, 'death tax,' ha] is one thing.
Accusing Democrats of deliberately destroying the economy is silly, over-the-top, pernicious, dare I say desperate nonsense.
16 - roger nowosielski
Well, Dave has a flair for the dramatic.
17 - handyguy
The exemption is $3.5 million for individuals, %7 million for couples. This is up from about $700,000 before the Bush 'reforms.'
The net effect is that only 1 estate out of 500 is taxed at all.
But it does provide about 2% of total tax revenue.
I would say this is more of a deficit control measure than anything else.
18 - Glenn Contrarian
handy!
It's a VAST left-wing conspiracy! Don't you know that yet???? Just ask Dave - that's what he'll tell you!
19 - roger nowosielski
So what's the tax rate on a seven million estate, Handy?
20 - roger nowosielski
Just like "we" engineered the present economic crisis, as both Dave and Christine seem to allege.
21 - handyguy
It's a big tax rate after the exemption, 45%.
On a $3 million estate, zero tax.
On a $5 million estate, $675,000.
On a $10 million estate, nearly $3 million.
22 - Christopher Rose
Once again Dave Nalle demonstrates why weapons ownership needs to be curtailed as he shoots both himself in the foot and his cause in the ass with another hysterically over the top article. :-)
More seriously, it is in fact an outrage when any government levies an inheritance tax, not least because any wealth that people have managed to build up in their lives has already been taxed and there is simply no justification for taxing it again simply because someone has died.
23 - Christine
Roger #14) thanks for the link, I assumed "ya all" knew what I was talking about. But who knows what the Dems are up to intentionally or otherwise (motives included), but it all looks bad.
Roger, perfidious, new word for me, a second thank you. Love new words.
24 - Lumpy
I think it's just that they are stuck at Joe Biden's intellectual level so he doesn't get held back and lose self esteem.
But seriously they don't have to be clever or conspiratorial. They can just follow the playbooks left to them by Mao And Alinsky like good little Marxists.
If we want to save the republic we need them out now. Joe McCarthy was right. Marxism is treason and cannot coexist with a free society.
25 - handyguy
The level of discourse among conservatives on this site is just...deranged. Does everything have to be exaggerated in apocalyptic terms? It would be a joke, but it's not very funny.