George Will's questions for John Kerry

I find it strange there are no comments on the other 27 questions.

The top 1% makes around 18% of the (taxable) income and pays around 36% of federal income taxes. Given their access to some sophisticated deductions, they probably make closer to 25% or 30% of the income, if you measured it on the same basis that the rest of us use. That part is debatable but there are a lot of offshore banks and post-office boxes that seem to have something to do with it.

Oh, boy, do they have *you* trained. What a good little boy you are. Onward, Christian soldiers...

I can't pass up this opportunity to agree with you, Glen. As an example, WalMart has done untold damage to the small businesses that built towns where a WalMart could not survive. WalMart, Target and K-Mart are the last discount stores around here. And K-Mart is floundering. How benevolent will WalMart be when they are the only game in town? I haven't been in one in over five years. Their patriotic slogan "Buy American", or whatever it was, just really pissed me when everything in the store came from South America or Asia.

Exactly what we need! When the people get a bill for their share of wastefulness in government, there would be revolt the first year.

I'm a fan of a national sales tax on everything except medical care. Tax every dollar that is spent or leaves the country.

Well, answer this. Why is it "fair" that these people will now have their long-term capital gains (gains from investments held one year or more), as well as all of their dividend income, taxed at a rate of only 5%, or 15%, depending on their bracket? And why, oh why, does that 5% drop to 0% in

Meantime, any income we earn is taxed at much higher rates. Is fairness the central issue to you? If so, how do you justify these changes to the tax code?

Ed Huntress

"Andy Asberry" wrote

Oh, all right. Here's another of Will's questions:

In 1994, the year after the first attack on the World Trade Center, you voted to cut $1 billion from counterterrorism activities. In 1995 you proposed a $1.5 billion cut in intelligence funding. Are you now glad that both proposals were defeated?

Great. The cuts were defeated. The funding passed. Fat lot of good it did us.

Just because you _call_ something "intelligence" or "counterterrorism" doesn't make it intelligence or counterterrorism. Shoveling money at the CIA is no different than shoveling money at the public schools: what _results_ the money buys you depends entirely on how the CIA or the public schools plan to _spend_ it. According to Will, the money was spent on "counterterrorism". Didn't work, did it? Maybe Kerry was right to vote against wasting money on those particular programs.

Incidentally, I have a question for George Will: back in 1984, did you or did you not publish the column below?

America the Undertaxed, by George F. Will

------------------------------------------------------------- "Ah, July: the fields are white with daisies. In January, I promised that not "until the fields are white with daisies" would I again mention that we are, as a nation, undertaxed. I now return to that topic because the inescapable need to raise taxes raises this question: can Ronald Reagan really want to be re-elected? If he faces facts --if he reads the numbers in the Wall Street Journal -- he knows that in 1985 the President must hurry to restore the government's revenue base. Reagan cannot be a Reaganite after 1984 ..."

-- Tony P.

Hell Ed..Im a libertarian. I think the Government should be self supporting.

However..how much of those folks investments provides jobs and goods and services for other people?

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

You talking about the 9 stooges? They are Dems.

Libertarians: cranks, kooks, nutbars and all manner of other interesting and freedom loving peoples. Beats the shit out of those cookie cutter Republicans and Demonrats.

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

"Gunner" wrote

What does "self-supporting" mean, Gunner? I know how a company like, say, General Motors can be self-supporting, but General Motors doesn't have to maintain a Navy, or answer to the voters.

-- TP

Read the Constitution. Its pretty specific as to how.

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

OK, here is your intrim bill for services rendered in 2003:

Highway use- personal vehicles 12,000 miles @ $.30/mile $3,600 Highway use- merchandise transport $1,500 Defence and security $2,900 Regulation of industries directly effecting your safety, health and financial security $500 Police and fire protection $1,500 Education @ $6,500/child Social services required to prevent riots and anarchy $100 Debt service on deficit incurred by Reagan and GW Bush administration $$3,500

Total currently due $20,000

More invoices will be submitted when the OMB completes percapata cost calculations.

Yep, no one wants to go dig through dusty archives anymore. They think all they need to know is on the net. Only a tiny percentage is, and much of that is selectively added to suit someones opinion. When I wrote for a living, I truly enjoyed delving into an old library archive and finding something that shed new light on a subject. Greg Sefton

Who cares if they made more money (net) if they doubled their share of the total taxes paid? The nit pickers on this one are showing their true colors :o). Greg Sefton

Here's the irony: Now that they've doubled their share of the nation's wealth in just 25 years, the top 1% turn around and say, "but we're the only ones with enough capital to make the investments. Of COURSE you now depend on our money. And, because you don't have enough in your pension funds, your mutual funds, your accumulated puny, individual investments, your credit associations, or your whole-life insurance funds anymore to make massive capital investments, you should give us even more of it, so we can take care of those investments for you and keep the economy rolling along."

That's what I mean when I say you've been well-trained. They got their deregulation and their tax cuts; they rigged the compensation committees of corporate boards so everyone is scratching each others' backs and piling up mountains of money through obscure mechanisms; they've cut the inheritance tax (which only ever applied to the rich, anyway) so they can form dynasties of wealth. So now the top, tiny fraction has more of the whole country's wealth than ever in modern history. And they convince people like you that, not only is this the natural course of events, but that it's the *virtuous* course of events.

Welcome to the land of Doublespeak. Welcome to the puppet show.

How are your hedge funds doing, BTW? And how do you like your new Gulfstream?

Yes, that's a satisfying part of the work. As for the selectivity, that's the very motivation of most of the people who "analyze" and publish statistics. You don't see a lot of good analysis that I would call straight journalism. Mostly it's coming from advocacy groups.

Ed Huntress

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:36:40 -0500, Glenn Ashmore brought forth from the murky depths:

And they were (at least somewhat) paid via: (top-of-my-head retorts)

Gas tax, state/fed income tax.

Gas tax, weight fees.

Income tax.

Both wholesale and retail prices.

My fire protection here in Josephine County is $124.17 annually. I wrote the check yesterday.

Housing/construction permits.

One might argue that overzealous police have more often caused than prevented riots.

Isn't that more like $35k?

No doubt.

---=====--- After all else fails, read the instructions. ---=====--- Website Design and Update

Who cares? Most people who haven't yet somnambulated into Heritage Foundation drones.

It used to be that the consensus in this country agreed that the very rich benefited far more than average income earners from the institutions that government enabled and regulated, including a banking and securities system that was kept fairly honest; an educated populace of workers; protections for their property and wealth; and so on. Then came Ronnie Reagan, and we did a kind of flip backwards into old-world thinking, in which wealth was equated with virtue, and the special treatment and special access that accrued to wealth was dismissed and forgotten.

They've done one hell of a snow job on the population. The idea that taxes for the rich should be reduced in the interest of "fairness" is the most incredible example of self-delusion and suspended disbelief in modern history. It didn't come cheap, of course. They built a very expensive propaganda machine to make it all stick. And it's working.

Speaking of which, the word is that the guys down at Heritage could use a few million extra for expenses. Why don't you write them a check? They're doing good work, ya' know, getting the word out and all...

Ed Huntress

But Gunner doesn't want taxes. He wants the government to run like a business and support itself. So the way they do that is to send out an itemized bill for your share of the services rendered. (Plus a suitable mark up for profit of course. This would be a business after all.)

The $3,500 for debt service is not to pay off the debt. It is just to make this years payment.

Larry Jaques wrote:

I think they should just run a big bake sale.

Ed Huntress

.36 cents per gallon gas tax paid at the pump.

I drive in 3 states, so reimbuse me for the amounts spent on the other

Huh? Auto registration of $280 per year. Used in 3 states. Do I get a rebate for the other 47 states?

Unneeded.

Which are?

Paid via property taxes.

No children in school.

See two up. And I supply my own arms and ammo.

Article 1 of the Constitution

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, impos ts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exe rcise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

See anything about OSHA? How about Interstate Hiways?

Need me to go on?

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas