Twelve long years later…
Well…that’s better. That was a good one. It’s been a long, long time since I listened to election returns with any pleasure. I’d forgotten what it even feels like.
Nothing like 1992, of course. That was one amazing evening. I was even surprised at how elated and hopeful I felt, and how unfamiliar that feeling was. (I was much less surprised at the disappointment later on.) This wasn’t like that, but it wasn’t bad. Pennsylvania! Go, Santorum! Ohio! Indiana. And so on. I wish Lieberman had lost. And, of course, I wish Webb had a bigger lead in Virginia. Looking down the road, I wish the Dems had much, much better candidates for president. But all the same, that was a good one.
I heard on the news last night that Republicans are much better at getting out the vote than Democrats are, but I have to say – they called me three times in the last couple of hours before the polls closed to urge me to go vote. That’s not too bad, I thought.
Two really revolting regressive state initiatives were roundly defeated here: one repealing the estate tax, and one requiring government to pay compensation to property owners for all regulations that could decrease the property value. Yesssssss. Not just defeated, but thoroughly defeated.
That was a good one.
Yep. I think that Paris Hilton is one of the best arguments in favour of increasing the estate tax you could think of.
Yup, and I know some others.
My brother and myself are just ordinary working chaps,when my dear mother died we got stonked for £17.000.00 in death taxes.What makes it even more galling is the fact that because she had a small amount of savings she was never able to claim even rudimentory help from the state when she was alive(she was unable to even feed herself at the end)still no help!death taxes dont just efect paris hilton!
Richard where was this? Was this a state tax? What state? The one in Washington applies only to estates over two million dollars. The federal tax also applied only to very large estates.
Oh, you said pounds. So you’re in the UK? Well your objection is not relevant to the estate tax in question – this tax does indeed affect only Paris Hilton and other millionaires.
OB, you say that the Democrats don’t have any decent candidates for president in 2008. I’ve always wondered why no one likes Hillary Clinton. American friends I’ve spoken to have an antipathy to her potential candidature that they can’t adequately explain. Is it just sexism against a powerful woman, or is it something more?
I admire her in some ways, Andy, not in others (she made a mess of the health care attempt, for one thing). But in any case I really really REALLY don’t want to perpetuate this ridiculous nepotism thing, and I also don’t want to vote for a Wife.
I was a volunteer with the Lamont campaign, so it was a sad night for me, especially since I was suffering from major sleep deprivation by that point. But, the sadness was mitigated, at least.
Realisticly 2 million is not a large estate and if the inheritance is just property the relatives get stuck with a huge bill that they have to borrow to meet ,remmember a farm can be worth 2 mill,death taxes are just as revolting wherever they are based!I am glad Lamont lost! his election would have sent an awfull message.
Who Lamont?
Who “Paris Hilton” for that matter?
Again, what’s wrong with Hilary – as far as I can see from here (UK) the health thing was shafted by the rethuglicans….
Unfortunately, it also fits with my horrible prediction:
Two terms for Hilary C. follwed by a very-close-fought 2016 election with a truly charismatic christian-fascist leader “winning”, followed by a Reichstag Fire, and Gilead.
Oh good, I’m glad 2 mill. is not a lot of money, it confirms what I’ve always suspected, that I live in grinding poverty…
p.s. from Washington State website [don’t know abt other States]:
“Are farms subject to the estate tax?
No. The value of farms and timberlands are deducted from the taxable value of an estate as long as certain requirements are met. This deduction applies to the land, farm structures and farming equipment.”
Or how about this:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-02.htm
“Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, said he had searched far and wide but had never found a farm lost because of estate taxes. “It’s a myth,” he said.
Even one of the leading advocates for repeal of estate taxes, the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it could not cite a single example of a farm lost because of estate taxes.”
So go blow…
I know there are Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, Liberals, Atheists, Greens and even Soicalists and Anarchists left and that post here, so without wishing to start any CiF bun-fights, I would just like to say congrats to any Democrats looking in.
There’s at least one Brit here who finds the result, (espcially the Virginia result) and the Rumsfeld resignation a relief and a vindication. Now if only you can get someone to stand who can win in 2 years time.
(And if only we can find a decent replacement here for Brown… )
Of course the really egalitarian thing to do would be to have 100% inheritnce tax across the board. There would be a few difficulties (family businesses and that sort of thing) but they would be outweighed by benefits, surely.
OB, how is voting for a Wife different from voting for a Husband, which is what you generally get?
It is rather a moot point in Hillary Clinton’s case. If Laura Bush suddenly decided in 2008 she should have a political career by trading on hubby’s name [good luck, haha], one might very well sneer. But HC has always been the brains of the Billary outfit — at least, according to her enemies! One might criticise her willingness to remain an eminence grise in the C20, but she is certainly carving her own notch now. What puts me off her [not that it’s any of my business] is the flood of big-donor money she gets. Not exactly grassroots.
Dave, although we don’t have a say, it is our business who gets to run the US. In this “globalised” world, our nations’ futures depend on it. Otherwise, why are we even discussing potential US presidents?
I know that. I was just being polite, inasmuch as I am not actually a US citizen, and some might take offence, indeed many do, at the suggestion that my opinion on the merits or demerits of a particular presidenciable [as they say in France] was of value.
Actually, I will insist on a distinction — these issues may concern us all, but they are not, strictly speaking, our business. We are not part of the decision-making process, just interested observers [like half the US adult population… haha. BTW, what was the turnout on Tuesday, I haven’t seen any collated figures?]
I haven’t seen collated figures, but in my state they are saying turnout was a record low (31% estimated). We didn’t have a major statewide race such as Senator or Governor, though.
Huge sums of money were spent (over $2 billion) on this campaign, but so much of that was spent on negative advertising, and I sometimes think the goal of negative ads is to drive down turnout (more among your opponents than among your friends).
The turnout was a depressing (shocking, really) 40%. Jeezis.
Andy, ‘Wife’ there meant someone running as the wife of someone who’s already done the job – Wife in the sense that Bush is a Son. So in that sense a Husband isn’t what you generally get. I didn’t mean I don’t want to vote for a married woman, I meant I don’t want to vote for 1) any relative of any former president but especially 2) the wife of a former president. (That is in spite of the fact that my grandmother had a very successful political career because of being a Wife. My grandfather was the losing Democratic [in 1926, not a Dem year] for governor, my grandmother was the first woman secretary of state [in the state] in 1932 [a Dem year, to put it mildly]. She was way popular and kept getting re-elected, with bigger majorities.)
“Of course the really egalitarian thing to do would be to have 100% inheritnce tax across the board.”
No. A flat tax wouldn’t be the really egalitarian thing to do, either.
Dennis, sympathy. Man, I despise Soapy Joe.
Democratic candidate, that was supposed to say. Losing Democratic candidate for governor.
The Washington State property rights initiative you scorn, OB, was indeed poorly thought-through and would have unleashed even more land-use chaos. Reluctantly, I voted against it.
But the impulse behind the measure — to temper the regressiveness and unfairness of our land use regulations — is a real one and deserves sympathy, though in this case not one’s vote.
Gosh darn, OB, and there I was all along assumin’ you was one a’ us little people, an’ all the time you been a hee-reditary big shot…
David, well I don’t doubt that the impulse behind the property rights initiative was a real one, but a real impulse doesn’t necessarily deserve sympathy. Lots of impulses are both real and nasty; real and mistaken; real and dangerous; etc.
Dave, noooooooooo. This was a little people kind of state. My grandfather was the son of Mennonite farmers. They were gen-yoo-ine little people, gosh darn it, not bogus little people of the Bush variety.
Part of reason for low turnout was intense rain, here in Pugetropolis/Cascadia anyway. I didn’t do the smart thing and get absentee, and I about had to swim to the polling-place, thank goodness it was just a half-mile away… I have had co-workers in their late 20’s bragging that they had never voted, and I was disgusted and said as much. If I recall rightly there were people who once risked death for that right.
I thought about you, Angiportus, up there near the valley; wondered if you were keeping head above the flood. Glad you managed!
But the 40% figure was national; that’s what’s so depressing.
“No. A flat tax wouldn’t be the really egalitarian thing to do, either.”
A flat inheritance tax would be more egalitarian than any other measure. Of course the children of the rich will always have advantages, but the degree of their advantage would be seriously reduced without any serious hardship for the poor. There would be lots of other benefits as well with the waeltghy oldsters being forced to spend their cash to keep it from the government. We should expect much higher levels of private philanthropy.Of course, there would have to be some small concesions.
Unlucky me – I missed Hillary Clinton’s stop on her statewide thank-you tour here in upstate NY yesterday.
Clinton is still seen by some here in NY as a bit of a “carpetbagger” and opportunist. She had no real connection to NY and its politics and took advantage of an open Senate seat – simply as a way station on the way to the presidency (it should be noted, of course, that several prominent NY Democratic politicians and voters encouraged her to run here). As regards the health care task force, it’s recommendations were seen by many (myself included) as overly bureaucratic and complex. It was simply relying on a big government solution to a problem by a “tax and spend” Democrat – with no new ideas or leadership evident. That last probably accounts for my own ambivalence, as a Democratic voter, about her as a presidential candidate.
“A flat inheritance tax would be more egalitarian than any other measure.”
No, a flat inheritance tax would not be more egalitarian than any other measure. Egalitarian is the wrong word there. It might be more other things, it might be more other good things, but it would not be more egalitarian. An egalitarian tax is a redistributive tax, one that functions to shrink the gap between rich and poor, not one that taxes everyone at the same rate.
“but the degree of their advantage would be seriously reduced without any serious hardship for the poor.”
Yes but with this particular tax the goal is to reduce the degree of their advantage with no hardship for the poor (no hardship for the middle or the quite rich, either – this particular tax is reserved for the very damn rich).
“Realisticly 2 million is not a large estate”
Realisticly 2 million pounds _is_ a large estate. Or else we need to radically re-define the meaning of the word ‘large’, to mean something like ‘small’. Which would be silly.
Richard is apparently ‘just [an] ordinary working chap’ multimillionaire. He’s a tad confusing.
OB,
I guess you think that it is OK that the burdens of conservation should fall unequally? On only a few? I hope not. That is of course exactly what our land use system does now.
In general there was a whole lot more to 1-933 than ‘greed is good.’
> Dennis, sympathy.
Thanks. Hopefully I’ll have a Democratic congressman next year. I’m in one of the districts where that’s still not determined.
> Man, I despise Soapy Joe.
The only time in my life I ever voted Communist was for U.S. congress in 1980. The Dem. candidate was Joe Lieberman. The Communist candidate was the least of three evils.
If a modest house in an area like streatham is over half a million,how is 2 million a large estate?
As far as Clinton goes, I’ll vote for the lesser of evils; that is the reality of politics. Her stance on flag burning was pathetic pandering, but I would take her anytime over much if not all of the opposition Republipigs.
Now, I am relieved by the Dems winning so well and wide. One never knows, this could lead to bigger and better things.
But the electorate, which is to blame for Bush and Co’s ascension, will largely remain what it was before: contemptuous of education, unless it is technical or scientific (and with some contempt for science yet); religiously pious while exalting social Darwinism, thinking it can get rich and gleefully stepping on anyone to get there; flapping its jaws on self-phones whilst driving; contemptuous of expertise and elites; burning oil in all spendthrift and destructive ways; sneering at the fate of the least fortunate; neglecting the common good for individual gain; eating the earth alive. Every man for himself. And so on. So, cheers.
Richard –
In case it had escaped your notice, the vast majority of people here in the UK do NOT live in the vast, blighted, hole known as London. Or, indeed, that tiny part of it called Streatham. Average house price in the UK is still (for the next 5 minutes, anyway), under £200,000.
If you don’t think £2 million pounds (currently c. $3.9million) is a lot to inherit, then chuck it my way – I’ll make sure it goes to a good home…
:-)
“An egalitarian tax is a redistributive tax, one that functions to shrink the gap between rich and poor, not one that taxes everyone at the same rate.”
A flat rate 100% inheritnce tax would be massively redistributive. Surely it is obvious that rich people inherit much more than poor people. The amount of tax being paid by the rich would be higher that that being paid by the poor in every case and would be precisely graded according to their wealth, since they’d be giving it all. The enormous influx of fnds to the state would pay for elfre many times over, too.
Congratulations to all those pleased by the Democrat win! As a non-American I await with interest the geopolitical outcomes.
John M, I don’t have time to explain progressive and regressive taxation the basics. Read a book or something.
“await with interest the geopolitical outcomes.”
Well apparently one is that Bolton is going to get the hook. Hurrah!
Washington state is not in Streatham, nor yet Mitcham neither Morden no nor Sutton.
Forgive me O.B I know not where I am.