I'm surprised the the Republicans in the House didn't wait until today to make their repeal of the estate tax permanent.
(Susan has plucked all the gory details from the Washington Post. Shakespeare's Sister expresses the appropriate indignation over at the Big Brass Blog.)
What a symbolic gesture that would have been. While the rest of us are treating today as a day of mourning, trust fund babies could be dancing in the street. You'd think the GOP leadership would have enjoyed the spectacle, given the amount of pleasure they seem to take in sticking it to the poor and the middle class these days.
(See bankruptcy bill. See Shakespeare's Sister spit nails again.)
You know, I understand why the rich hate the poor. I don't sympathize with it, I despise them for it, but I understand it. The poor by their mere existence are a living reminder that the rich have for the most part neither earned all their money nor spent it wisely nor used much of it to do the world any good.
The idea of a baby going hungry makes it awful hard to enjoy that drive down to the Hamptons in the beamer with the top down. But it's easier to hate that baby for having had the gall to have been born to poor parents than to feel a little bit of guilt, compassion, or obligation to help that baby.
But why do they hate the middle class too?
Is it a problem of perspective? Do we just look like more poor people to them?
Sometimes I wonder if it's not a matter of hate or contempt, it's just that same lazy solipsism that had the aristocrats standing before the guillotine turning to the crowd and asking, "Just what is your people's problem?"
But the sad fact is that many members of the middle class, and the working class, and even many poor people do not feel at all screwed by what the Republicans have been doing.
They think---they really do think---that the GOP has been looking out for their interests.
All across America there are people who aren't rich, who have never been rich, who will never be rich unless they hit the lottery and then they probably won't stay rich because they will piss all that money away, who in their hearts think of themselves as rich. They identify with the rich, they imagine that the rich are just friends they haven't met yet. They love the rich as surrogate selves. They look at the rich and they're looking in the mirror.
We live in a nation full of people who seriously expect to wake up tomorrow morning rich as Croesus. People who know all the angles, who've got big dreams and big plans, who just need a little luck or an extra edge, who've got it all figured out, if only...If only.
In other words, we live in a nation full of suckers.
Which explains why our history's full of gold rushes, stock market bubbles, Ponzi schemes, and Republican Congresses.
The rich don't think they should pay any taxes, but regular Americans don't despise them for that. They agree with the sentiment.
Americans' hatred of the tax man is said to be one of our inheritances from the Founders. The United States was born of a tax revolt and so no wonder we all rebel against paying taxes.
Nonsense.
We don't hate taxes because of some noble streak of American independence.
We hate it becuase we are afflicted with the human desire for a free lunch.
And generations of politicians, from both parties, have been happy to tell us that if we vote for them we can have it. Free lunches for all!
Anti-tax types, often calling themselves Libertarians, but who are really just Free Lunchers, like to say that the People know better how to spend their money than the government does.
If that were true, nobody outside of Bagdad would be driving a Hummer.
Andrew Tobias puts it more eloquently and more responsibly.
One of his readers wrote in to ask him, "Why do you think the Government will spend [the money] more productively than the earner?"
Tobias replied, "Because I don't think the earner will spend it to build roads, control air traffic, fund college scholarships, subsidize scientific research, provide health care to the old and the poor... and on and on."
That said, I hope you are due a whopping big refund and that somebody whose company you enjoy takes you out to lunch...and picks up the check.
I like it. I've never been able to understand why the American voter so consistently votes against his/her own interests. I fail to understand why money earned through honest toil should be taxable while found money is not. I also wonder where the Dems went. They've been absent from the scene for some years now.
Posted by: Michael G | Friday, April 15, 2005 at 02:03 PM
Brilliant. As always.
(Not the references to me - everything else.)
:)
Posted by: Shakespeare's Sister | Friday, April 15, 2005 at 03:41 PM
money is the root of everyday evil -- your john doe and jane roe.
i don't mean mass murderes like nazis and communists or serial killers -- those are large/grotesque evils, started by psychopaths and unthinkable by the self-samed john doe and jane roe.
i've seen people squabble over it, lust for it, scheme for it, hate people who have it, hate people who don't have it. it's disgusting.
i've also heard stories from my father, who worked at a small bank for 40-plus years before he retired. he was a trust officer during the last 7 years of employment, and the stories he told me about how people almost start swinging in his office ...
i don't want to write about this any more. thinking of it makes me feel disgusted at my "fellow" man -- and woman, too.
Posted by: harry near indy | Friday, April 15, 2005 at 04:54 PM
As I watch the IRS directly debit my account for the amount I owe them, my only regret is that I can't direct my taxes toward mass transit, stem cell research, housing, and a zillion other more useful things than the G-D missile defense program, Iraq and other boondoggles.
(Green eyeshade on: if you're due a whopping big refund, then adjust your bloody W-4. Why make an interest-free loan to George Bush?)
Posted by: Linkmeister | Friday, April 15, 2005 at 05:19 PM
Everybody likes a BIG story, small change is boring. And why the democrats call themselves "dems" ? It sounds like dames or duche bags, not a powerful name.
Posted by: urban | Saturday, April 16, 2005 at 12:58 PM
"Because I don't think the earner will spend it to build roads, control air traffic, fund college scholarships, subsidize scientific research, provide health care to the old and the poor... and on and on."
Herein lies the fundamental fallacy behind all the disdain for taxes. There's no way for a democratic society to run itself without some cash to do the above. Oddly, as a collection of 360 million independent city-states, we seem to think this stuff just happens.
I don't mind paying taxes. I believe in taxes. I'm a Democrat -- from each according to his means, to each according to his need. The so-called tax rebels weren't against taxes, either. If you study your history, you'll read that the issue was taxes levied by a king an ocean away, while the colonists had no say in what was taxed or how much, and the British got most if not all of the benefit. That's the seat of the rebellion: giving money to people who have no intention of doing anything for you...
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Saturday, April 16, 2005 at 01:01 PM
PS-- to Michael G and in reference to my being a democrat, I know you mean the Democtratic Party, who used to stand for the interests of the working class and the labor unions who, by the way, were not and are still not liberal in their views. It's just that the Democratic Party used to stand for something they could relate to, and now the Dems seem to stand for a lot of the same things the Republicans stand for, but with worse PR savvy.
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Saturday, April 16, 2005 at 01:05 PM
"In other words, we live in a nation full of suckers."
Also, a nation of ignorance. A lot of this is the poor state of education we have. Very few folks have any context beyond what has happened in the last few months...
Dems are not getting their message across because big business has a huge stake in all major media, and big business wants republicans to win so they can get huge tax cuts and favorable business conditions. Whenever I hear Network folks report from Iraq, they love ending with things like "it is not all bad today, hundreds of men are signing up for police jobs, they want jobs". I guess this comment is supposed to make a positive twist on the situation, even though the statement stinks of unemployment and desperation. They are cheerleaders; the network news is a bunch of cheerleaders. Today one of them said the Dems still have no proposals on social security...
So network news is speaking the talk that Republicans want...
Dems think it is good enough to do damage control, they need to attack big time, they need to start trust busting bigt media with everything they have...
Posted by: denisdekat | Sunday, April 17, 2005 at 11:03 AM