President Obama has consistently suggested our economic health could be corrected if the wealthy paid their "Fair Share."
What is a "Fair Share"? How is it determined?
If we are expecting some to pay additional taxes because they are wealthy, will there be consequences?
Do legislators consider how they affect the general public, today and over time, or are they only focused on their term?
We, the citizens, need to reconcile how those we elect affect our ability to have sustainable conditions. What opportunities will survive the actions of a government that intrudes on our personal situations to forward their agenda's?
I am truly interested in how the general public is affected by the government ... are they helping, or hurting your situation?
Your "set up ownership with trusts" example avoids the capital gains tax, as it transfers the assets to trust at 'current fair market net asset value', so the 'appreciated value' from 'date of trust creation' forward avoids the Inheritance / Estate Tax. Any amount transferred to trust, while still alive, counts against ones lifetime Estate Tax exemption amount. FYI: The current Estate tax exemption is just over $5 million/person.( It is inflation indexed and I think it's going to 5.25 million/person next year.) So, a couple can protect over $10 million, Net Asset Value, from the Estate Tax.
... You shouldn't benefit from my hard work, unless I decide to extend it to you, and my reasons are not pertinent to any one but me. ... should each generation be responsible for their own success? I suspect they should, but you excuse many their responsibility without regard for your own projection that they be responsible, why is that? Further, you, and those that subscribe to your ideology are indifferent to the deficit you leave future generations, why is that? As to my progeny, I owe them nothing beyond the protections and rearing through their youth. That doesn't mean I shouldn't have the right to give them, or any other my fortunes that I have earned. Why should your progeny be able to lay claim to my assets via redistribution? I commend your support of extending values and responsible behavior to our children ... yet you continually exempt some from that expectation. That some lose what they are given is a silly defense.
Simple Economics would correct our plight. A Government that is fixated on ulterior motives has preyed upon our citizens to manipulate our economic condition. We would do well to assert our control on government and afford the benefits of economic growth without their intrusion. Those least among us would benefit the result.
If WalMart, to pick the most current "enemy of the State" were to withdraw from the economy, what would result? Who would stand to lose the most? Critical thinking is lacking. We, as an affluent Nation, allowed some pretty ridiculous notions to contaminate an economy that would correct itself, if not for intrusion. BTW, Jay (and I find your review correct) ... consider how ridiculous the contortions you provided to explain the process of inheritance via different avenues .... really? .... really???? This is what have become .... pathetic.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/12/07/t-boone-pickens-wants-obama-tell-him-what-his-fair-share-taxes
The U.S. economy grew in the fourth quarter - but just barely - 0.1% http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-economy-grew-01-in-fourth-quarter-2013-02-28?link=MW_latest_news
Shut up Ruble, you make no sense.
But why should the Government get it? This will somehow equate to equality of opportunity?
Who cares? Whether or not Sam Walton's kids got a lot or a little, makes no difference to me. You are trying to sell some idea that their inheritance has an impact on whether or not I can succeed. That's bull plop. More importantly, you make the example of the professional athlete. There are people who will practice for hours, day, years hoping to gain the abilities that most professional athletes are born with. They have been born with an unequal advantage (genetic inheritance) that the rest of haven't. Watching my kids, it is plain to see that athleticism is an advantage some possess over others. How to propose to equalize that opportunity? In both cases the desire to develop your inheritance is what separates all of us. Many inner city blacks that could go pro choice not to and live the thug life. If the Koch money would have gone to Lindsay Lohan, she would have snorted it long before it could have been put the good use. The difference between Lebron James a street thug is his choice to use his inheritance. The same goes for the Koch brothers. That choice is the American Exceptionalism, equality in opportunity you wish to denounce and destroy. Your post reads as pure envy/jealousy. True to liberal form, materialism makes the man.
Classes will never be "fully funded" and we always need "smaller" class sizes. Of course we know money has little to do with actual teaching, but it sure helps prop up the institution of education. I've also noticed how big city polititians always clamor for more money for infrastructure, yet the money they receive always ends up being spent on some other pet project. Now that is neither fair nor good stewardship of public (taxpayer-provided) funds.
My view and philosophy makes it more important to spend one's fortune on making the world a better place. I would much prefer it go somewhere that it could do some good rather than give it up to the government. Something else one needs to look at is what was the purpose of inheritance. Prior to the advent of the nuclear family and welfare programs, inheritance was kept within the extended family to maintain the health and security of the basic structural unit. The extended family functioned as banker, landlord, old age security, child care center, etc. Usually the eldest son of the eldest son was the executor of the economic structural unit. The family owned the wealth, not the individual. Much of what we pay for now to provide essential services were provided for by the family. Also, family need was placed over individual need. We still see this model in Asian and Mid Eastern societies.
All are great points. The problem with family owning the wealth as opposed to individuals is the regulations. It is a separate entity that requires oversight, costs, taxation, etc. The person who accumulated the funds has a right to do with them as (s)he sees fit. They can give everything to charity, give it to an individual, or place it in a trust. That should remain their right. Some people have the opinion that trusts are control from the grave, but so is the decision to leave everything to a charity. Family dynamics often dictates what the decision will be.
One of your children has the desire to go to one of the service academies. They work hard and achieve the academic record required, they are reasonably athletic and show a great amount of self discipline. They apply to your local congressman to get an appointment. At the same time a kid that doesn't have your kid's qualifications also applies, but his or her parents are big political contributors to the congressman and the congressman sponsors their kid. In this case merit doesn't matter, but social position and wealth does. Another example is someone who applies to medical school. They have all the right qualifications, tested very well on the MCAT. Another student not quite as qualified as your child also applies and gets in when your child doesn't. The other child's parent is a physician that has been contributing thousands a year to their alma mater. Did wealth and position not limit your child's opportunity? This is not anything to do with envy, but everything to do with stacking the deck to assure you have or your progeny have a winning hand. If you, as you claim, support the idea that with enough hard work and desire, one can succeed; maybe not when privilege and position is unequally distributed. Inherited wealth is a means for unequal privilege.
When one of children fails to get the things you mentioned because of an affirmative action requirement, will you claim the same thing? Or is that equality in action? If my child is that obsessed with the material, then I already failed. They are entitled to no position in life and at any number of crossroads life will slap them down. You are basing your justification for fairness on purely material things. The examples you list are impossible to stop and they happen at every level of education and career path. My family faced it in an elementary school. By attempting to restrict the passage of inheritance as a means to end favoritism, is like trying to kill a weed by cutting off the top 1/4 of the plant. If you restrict inheritance, people who wish their wealth be given to their kids will find other ways of doing it. The expansion of the tax code always produces those that find a way out of paying. Not to mention, the actions you list will continue, because even if you remove the wealth, something like fame or celebrity status will replace it. In the end, you have made an emotional piece of legislation that feels good, but has no bite. It would never correct the problems you list.
I am broke, my kid is in the process of preparing to take her MCATs. From what you said, am I correct to assume she is screwed and has no chance? Should I be looking for someone to sell a kidney to so I have the means to grease a wheel?
No one would take my organs anyway, they are out of tune.
Lyle, it our President, not Bottom Line, that is tossing around the words 'fairshare', sans clear reasonable definition;that is in-fact what created the need his blog post. It is, in-fact, the President that is misleading with his usage of 'fairshare'. I have not heard the President tie 'fairshare' to anything other than 'Pay MORE Taxes'. I'd like to see a Lexus/Nexus of the Presidential use of 'fairshare' . I'd bet we would only find 'fairshare' tied to paying more taxes;never to your point Lyle, 'focus on the question of what are the minimum needs everyone has a right to expect by simply being a citizen of this nation.' That Lyle, sadly, very sadly, is the very definition 'Presidential Failure to Lead'
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all." Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again: "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"