re: Vivek supports 59% as a minimum inheritance tax. Rich people "owe" everyone else.

quote:

---

So conservatives don’t support paying off their debts?

---

Conservatives don't support the few paying off the debt of the many.

Has a single person here said we shouldn't pay down debt? Why do you insist on only discussing half of the issue?

quote:

---

Why?

---

It is on money and property already owned, already taxed. It is a positive good for a parent to leave an inheritance to their children, for their good, security, and future success. The government has zero right to interrupt this transfer. It is not their property. Taxing land inheritance is a way to break up family land or wealth protected for generations, in order to give it to corporations or whomever the govt deems more worthy than a family. Preventing the accumulation of generational wealth is a way to make us more dependent on the government, when the primary unit of society is not government, but family.

Proverbs 13:22 - a good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children

Hosea 5:10 - the princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark, upon them I will pour out my wrath like water (government was stealing family land for its own use rather than allowing it to continue in the family, the equivalent of inheritance tax)

This will only make a dent.

But multiple dents are necessary to aggregate into the larger change we absolutely need to see. And I’d rather make one of those dents from the subset of the population who can both afford it and who has done nothing to earn it than to make that dent from people who are already forced into living paycheck to paycheck explicitly because of the policies the uniparty has crippled our country with.

Simply stated, tax revenue needs to be raised, and this type of tax feels more morally justifiable than any of the others I’ve heard floated. But if you have a new idea for a better way to raise more tax revenue, I’m all ears

Which half am I missing?

I have explicitly stated that we need to both cut spending and raise tax revenue. I’m supporting a tax revenue source that I believe is more pragmatic than the alternatives. Which half of the issue is left undiscussed?

quote:

---

This will only make a dent.

---

How big of a dent? Have you run the actual numbers?

quote:

---

this type of tax feels more morally justifiable than any of the others I’ve heard floated. But if you have a new idea for a better way to raise more tax revenue, I’m all ears

---

So you're in the "use the tax code as a moral instrument" crowd. I am not. If I had a magic easy button we'd fund the government via a consumption tax, zero exemptions, that every single person pays. That will raise money and just as importantly it will give EVERYBODY a vested interest in being concerned about spending.

quote:

---

I have explicitly stated that we need to both cut spending

---

Politically you can't cut spending when half the country is decoupled from it. Only when everybody pays into the pot will politics allow legitimate spending cuts.

quote:

---

Being a self-made man is a hallmark of conservatism

---

So is private property.

quote:

---

you can't be a self-made man if you start out with everything just being handed to you.

---

Another hallmark of conservatism is not worrying about whether another person is self-made or not.

Have you run the numbers on a consumption tax funding the entire government?

Because doing some back of napkin math, total US consumption was 14 trillion last year. And total US government spending was 6 trillion. That’s a 43% tax on all goods sold, for all people, and that’s before you account for the lessened consumption that would come from such a huge sales tax spike. Incorporating that demand loss, you’d likely need to send 50%+ of all sales revenue to the government in order to be able to make this operational.


I don’t know, feel free to bash me for being more of a pragmatist than an idealist if you’d like… but I can’t imagine any version of our current political landscape in which you get that type of tax code change through our government. It’s just not happening. A magic easy button would be wonderful to have, but absent living in that utopia, I don’t see how your proposal is even close to politically viable.

What I’m trying to push is that tax revenue needs to be raised to pay off our debts, and taxing inheritance after 10 million is a better way to raise some portion of that revenue than the alternatives. And yes, there are absolutely people who disagree with this. They are the ones I am trying to persuade.

I have provided one-off answers to other tangential components of that discussion, but that’s the core of what I am pushing. Everything else is meant to be in support of that concept.