wgrr,
Thanks for the history of the phrase "death tax".
Here is my reason for starting the thread and why I am posting now.
Since the economic hard right decided to keep their backs to the wall I guess this thread is almost done. The idea for this thread came from arguments in the progressive income tax history thread. Some people, one person, whatever, argued that the incredibly wealthy provide a societal benefit by building things that are incredibly expensive. Examples might include museums, research hospitals, parks, and the like.
While that is true it is also true that the wealthy don't all do those things for the same reasons. After all there are different kinds of wealthy people. Some of them got rich because they were gifted souls. We've talked about Steve Jobs being a great industrial artist. Henry Ford might be considered a gifted pioneer in the assembly arena. We all know the political drum beat and none of us wanted to take away their worldly rewards without good reason. After all we would like to pass similar gifts to our children if we were so gifted. Similarly those kinds of rich people might tend to give to schools or other good causes such as museums.
On the other hand there are people that were also gifted but not in an area of creation or invention. Instead they were gifted in manipulation. They had the gift of gab and were good at getting people to do their bidding. The modern dead master might be Kenneth Lay of Enron fame. In older days William Randolph Hearst might be an example. As voters with morals we have to ask ourselves if those are the kinds of blood lines that we want to have an easy head start with each generation. If we look at their gifts they might tend to give to political research organizations that further their manipulative tendencies.
At the beginning of the Industrial Age our grandparents or great grandparents already had to face those questions. A majority of them decided to throttle back on wealth accumulation so that no bloodline got a head start by mere virtue of being born from blue blood. The voting majority used the age old tool of estate taxes to try and throttle rich dicks back. They were dicks because they weren't happy enough with having big houses on each coast and shopping Europe each season for a wardrobe of handmade clothes. No. The dicks wanted to be kings.
Unfortunately the good rich people and their bloodlines also got caught up in the estate tax trap. I think that is what makes us feel sorry for people like Steve Jobs. There can be such things as good kings after all.
All of this comes back to the modern rhetoric of incredibly wealthy people helping with incredibly expensive causes. Some of you might remember The Giving Pledge Project that Bill and Melinda Gates started during the financial crisis. Warren Buffet helped spearhead the effort. That was simply a gesture of two wealthy families working together to whip other rich people into line. They knew that if the rich didn't police themselves then voters, the 99% was the buzzword du jour, would move toward turning the estate tax back up and taking the wealth from them to kill their wealthy blood lines.
It's no different than a bunch of bummed out players in a game of Monopoly. You've wanted to smack the shit out the guy that got arrogant upon owning the side of the board with Park Place and Boardwalk. Admit it.
Going back to the Giving Pledge Project. Have you noticed that we have not heard much from it in the past few years? The fact is that Bill, Melinda, and Warren did a good job of public relations. They showed that they understand both sides of the situation. The Giving Pledge Project is still alive but they have not made much press. Now they are simply covering their asses by making press releases shortly after tax day, April 15. Check it out.
http://givingpledge.org/#enter
Again I don't want to persuade people to one side or the other. I'm hoping to help fill in the grey between the black and white of campaign rhetoric.
But for the record, so long as the Republican party stays brain dead and glued to one side I can't vote for them any more. Are you listening? Hello?