Word came down today that President Trump is looking to end the estate tax. Liberals, of course, say he is doing it to help the wealthy. And while it certainly does help the more affluent to actually keep what they worked so hard for, and already paid taxes on, President Trump understands there is a bigger issue here.
Consider this scenario as an example...
A man and his family spend their lives working hard to build up a profitable family farm worth $10 million. The man dies, and the family must pay the government $6 million in estate tax, on something that has already been taxed before. (This does not include any state "death tax" that would also be due). Many would say, "So what - the family still has $4 million". But they don't. Almost the entire $10 million value of the farm is in land, stock and equipment. There is little or no cash. In order to pay the taxes, the family is forced to sell the farm, and chances are the only ones able to buy it is some huge (and even wealthier) farming conglomerate. The family farm is gone. The family income is gone.
The fact is that most wealth passed on to heirs is in the form of non-cash assets. Such assets are not liquid, and often must be sold to pay the taxes. This destroys a lot of family businesses - and a lot of families.
Another fact that liberals do not want you to come face-to-face with: EVERY tax destructive. It eats up working capital, reducing production, growth and hiring. It takes away the ability to spend, reducing the ability to buy things that keep people working and the economy moving.
Certainly, taxes are necessary to fund the government, but the government, by Constitutional constraint, may only tax and spend for eight very specific purposes. Building treadmills for shrimp, and a huge number of other things our government wastes hundreds of billions a year on doing are not among the governments lawful purposes. If we get rid of the waste, the fraud and the spending that is not even lawful, there would be no need to destroy family inheritances with a death tax. In fact, all taxes could be reduced dramatically.
For example, there is no need, nor logical purpose, for giving other nations our own taxpayer money to help build THEIR countries when ours is in need. Sending $500 million to Mexico each year is a travesty - it is not our job to take care of Mexico. If you have to buy your friends, they are not friends worth having.
In short, the estate tax is unfair and even illegal, according to the original Constitution (before Wilson illegally instituted the Federal Reserve and used deceit to pass an amendment changing HOW taxes could be assessed).
And just as important - just because something helps the rich does not make it bad or wrong. What counts is justice, not who it helps most.
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Monday, January 23, 2017
Helping Hillary Figure Out Why She Lost
Politico reports that Hillary Clinton is still trying to figure out why she lost the election. Frankly, if she does not know the answer to that, she has no business even running for office. However, for the sake of her sanity, and to help her get through this, I will make it as simple and clear as is humanly possible.
Hillary lost for three big reasons (there are other, smaller reasons discussed at the end)
The first reason: Hillary did not address the issues important to middle America - everyday people. She should learn and apply Maslov's hierchy of needs. If people are struggling just to put food on the table, you won't get far talking about gender issues
Second reason: she took important states for granted, and did not campaign there. States like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio...
Third reason: most of Hillary's pressers and fund raisers were with the liberal elite, like all the Hollywood celebrities. Mainstream America saw that, and said, "She does not even recognize I exist. She lives in a bubble. How can she represent me?"
Those are the biggies. Lesser reasons - which had a minor effect - were the scandals - Benghazi, and her blaming it on a video no one ever saw; her deletion of 30,000 emails; and all her lies, beginning with the one about being under sniper fire on the tarmac, and ending with "there was no classified info in my emails", and "Donald Trump is mysogynist & racist" (the evidence proves otherwise).
But the main reasons she lost are the first three I have listed, showing arrogance, ignorance and detachment from the real people of middle America.
As a side note: #1 and #3 are the same reasons why the 16 other REPUBLICAN candidates lost to Trump.
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Hillary lost for three big reasons (there are other, smaller reasons discussed at the end)
The first reason: Hillary did not address the issues important to middle America - everyday people. She should learn and apply Maslov's hierchy of needs. If people are struggling just to put food on the table, you won't get far talking about gender issues
Second reason: she took important states for granted, and did not campaign there. States like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio...
Third reason: most of Hillary's pressers and fund raisers were with the liberal elite, like all the Hollywood celebrities. Mainstream America saw that, and said, "She does not even recognize I exist. She lives in a bubble. How can she represent me?"
Those are the biggies. Lesser reasons - which had a minor effect - were the scandals - Benghazi, and her blaming it on a video no one ever saw; her deletion of 30,000 emails; and all her lies, beginning with the one about being under sniper fire on the tarmac, and ending with "there was no classified info in my emails", and "Donald Trump is mysogynist & racist" (the evidence proves otherwise).
But the main reasons she lost are the first three I have listed, showing arrogance, ignorance and detachment from the real people of middle America.
As a side note: #1 and #3 are the same reasons why the 16 other REPUBLICAN candidates lost to Trump.
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Saturday, January 14, 2017
Why The Popular Vote Does Not Matter - and Never Has
As we approach the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, there has been a lot of people claiming he is not legitimate because he lost the "popular vote". Such people either have not read the Constitution, or do not understand it, because the Constitution makes it clear that the "popular vote" is only consequential on a state-by-state basis. It is not, and never has been a national vote.
To clarify, the residents of a state would vote for the candidate they want in office. The popular vote in that state determines only which candidate their own electors will vote for. This popular vote is not supposed to have any impact on a national scale other than the power of their electors in the Electoral College.
Take New Hampshire as an example, which has 4 electoral votes. The voters of New Hampshire cast their votes for the candidate of their choice. If, for example, the plurality of voters vote for the Democrat candidate, the state's four electors would cast their ballots for the Democrat. And the popular vote of NH will have no impact beyond that, and is not counted along with the votes of other states - at least not for purposes of electing the President.
In other words, there is not one, national popular vote count. Instead, there are 50 separate popular votes. They do not get added together for election purposes. NH votes go to the NH electors; and Florida votes go to Florida electors. One does not affect the other.
Now for the reason behind this.
The Founders determined rather quickly that if a President were elected by a popular vote on a national scale, one or two heavily populated states would forever control the entire country, and we would not have a government of, by and for the people. The people of Boston and Philadelphia would rule over all the states, particularly those in the south. They decided, for the sake of fairness, that there should be electors from each state, and the popular vote in each state, separately, would determine how their state votes. No state would have the power to affect how other states vote.
Right now, California has 55 electors because the state is so large. If their popular vote could be combined with other populous states like New York, 48 states would never be represented.
And that is why the popular vote does not, and never has determined an election. The Electoral college does that, on a state-by-state basis, giving each state a fair shot at helping to choose who sits in the Oval Office.
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To clarify, the residents of a state would vote for the candidate they want in office. The popular vote in that state determines only which candidate their own electors will vote for. This popular vote is not supposed to have any impact on a national scale other than the power of their electors in the Electoral College.
Take New Hampshire as an example, which has 4 electoral votes. The voters of New Hampshire cast their votes for the candidate of their choice. If, for example, the plurality of voters vote for the Democrat candidate, the state's four electors would cast their ballots for the Democrat. And the popular vote of NH will have no impact beyond that, and is not counted along with the votes of other states - at least not for purposes of electing the President.
In other words, there is not one, national popular vote count. Instead, there are 50 separate popular votes. They do not get added together for election purposes. NH votes go to the NH electors; and Florida votes go to Florida electors. One does not affect the other.
Now for the reason behind this.
The Founders determined rather quickly that if a President were elected by a popular vote on a national scale, one or two heavily populated states would forever control the entire country, and we would not have a government of, by and for the people. The people of Boston and Philadelphia would rule over all the states, particularly those in the south. They decided, for the sake of fairness, that there should be electors from each state, and the popular vote in each state, separately, would determine how their state votes. No state would have the power to affect how other states vote.
Right now, California has 55 electors because the state is so large. If their popular vote could be combined with other populous states like New York, 48 states would never be represented.
And that is why the popular vote does not, and never has determined an election. The Electoral college does that, on a state-by-state basis, giving each state a fair shot at helping to choose who sits in the Oval Office.
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