This week’s Lexicon entry takes us from the national and international stages to something a little closer to home. As can be expected from the day after Election Day until the next Election Day, there are politicians running for office, and their ads are more ubiquitous than the bad reviews for “Supergirl.” (Too soon?) One of the ads is for a Republican running for reelection in my home state of Iowa, and in that ad a lot of time is spent on how this candidate wants to end the “death tax.” More on that in a bit.
While cruising Facebook (since I have the social media skills of a rock), I saw a Leftist post about this effort, basically saying it’s pointless since Iowa has already done away with the death tax…all the while missing the point this candidate is running for reelection to the House of Representatives, as in the one in Washington, DC. Nobody said Leftists were smart, and if they did, they were lying. Or Leftists themselves, but I repeat myself.
Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to avoid talking about immigration for at least a week and focus on one of the tepid-button issues of our time.
death tax
What the Left thinks it means – a necessary tax to prevent wealthy families from hoarding money
What it really means – government taking more money from people simply for inheriting valuables
Although it has an ominous, yet totally kick-ass, name, the death tax is more commonly known by two more mundane names, the inheritance tax and the estate tax. There are important differences between the two, but they both operate on the same premise: government wants a cut of anything you get. Well, except for your crazy Aunt Freida’s erotic Hummel collection. That shit goes on eBay!
Not that I know anything about that, mind you…
Meanwhile back at the main point, I’m not a big fan of taxation in general, but the death tax in any of its forms is particularly shitty to me. Not only is any money or value taxed while the original owner is alive, but then it gets taxed again because the owner died and wanted someone else to have it. And when you consider the extent of the government’s involvement in the situation is holding out its hands like beggars, it makes a fucked up situation even more fucked up.
Which is why the Left loves death taxes so much. Granted, they’ve never met a tax they haven’t loved, but the death tax is special. It combines two of their favorite things in the world: taking money from people, and class warfare.
And, yes, I see the humor in “class” and “Leftist” appearing in such close proximity.
Which leads us into a topic joined at the hip with the death tax, class warfare. Without turning this into a Leftist Lexicon entry within a Leftist Lexicon entry (Lexception, in other words), this refers to a Leftist tactic driven by jealousy at people who do better than others. After all, Leftists believe any rich person’s success comes through exploitation of the workers.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to wealthy Leftists like our good friend, Uncle George Soros…
The point is Leftists believe the only way to get people to pissed off enough to go after those rich assholes is to stoke resentment with those who aren’t rich. Hence, we have class warfare.
But there’s a tiny problem with that: most rich people don’t do anything for or against the rest of society. Rarely will you find a billionaire with a secret lair hidden within a volcano and plotting world domination with a death ray (for peaceful purposes only). Most of the time, those with that kind of wealth don’t rub shoulders with John Q. Public, so there really isn’t a logical basis for there to be hard feelings towards the Elon Musks of the world.
But the Left doesn’t operate in the world of logic. Instead, they want you to feel something, usually hatred, depression, and other things that make you a fucking drag at parties. I know this because I used to be a Leftist, and it was one of the most miserable times of my life. When you’re a Leftist, you’re perpetually pissed off at something that’s outside of your control, which leads to more impotent rage, which then leads to stupid protests.
Which leads to me pointing, laughing, and hopefully making you laugh at the absurdity.
The same pissed-offedness works behind the scenes with death tax. After all, it’s not fair someone would give you money simply for not dying yet when that money could have gone to a real world issue, like increasing LGBTQIA+THISDAMNACRONYMGETSFUCKINGLONGERBYTHEFUCKINGDAY visibility in [insert movement, hobby, or other activity where people are having too much fun]. So, because your favorite Leftist movement isn’t getting a penny, they have to force you to give up some of it under threat of governmental enforcement.
So, they’re nice people…
And before you can say “taxation is theft” you’re going to get pushback from the Left talking about all the great things that could be funded with the death tax. In response, let me point out the fact we’re dealing with billions of dollars in taxpayer fraud, so that tells me the government is spending the money like a coke fiend with a dealer on speed dial and a black Amex card. In other words, Hunter Biden. It also tells me the government doesn’t need the money from the death tax as much as it needs one hell of an intervention.
And one way we can kick that off is to eliminate the death tax. It makes no literal sense to punish a family by taking money away from them because it comes into an inheritance. Unless that inheritance came from a mattress, it was already taxed at some point. And if it was stuffed in a mattress, it wouldn’t be very comfortable, which is only marginally worse than an IRS audit, so I’d call it square.
Even if we’d be lucky to get a wooden nickel from our eccentric Uncle Throckmorton, the government has no business getting even that much. If a relative dying is good enough for Leftist assholes to hold out their hands waiting for their “fair share,” it’s an even better reason to deny them their payday because it makes them no better than stereotypical relatives at a will reading waiting for their payout.
In other words, the Biden family.
Tag: taxation
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
It’s April, and it’s time for one of the Left’s favorite activities to resume. Is it the start of Major League Baseball? Nope. Is it the NBA playoffs? No. Is it whining and complaining about the rich not paying their “fair share” in taxes?
Bingo.
The “fair share” drumbeats started up again like a Neil Peart drum solo recently when President Joe “I Helped My Son Get a Sweet Gig in Russia and All I Got Was 10%” Biden proposed a new minimum tax for billionaires (or more precisely hundred millionaires) of at least 20% on their actual income and any assets that have gained value but haven’t been sold yet. Sorry for the long sentence, folks, but to fully express the proposal, I had to be a little long-winded. Meanwhile back in the main topic, Leftists are happy with this proposal because they say it will help with the deficit. But, as you might expect, there’s a bit more to their love of taxes.
taxation
What the Left thinks it means – a means to pay for the services the government provides
What it really means – a way to punish people more successful than Leftists will ever be
Leftists thrive on negative emotions, but the coin of their realm is jealousy. Well, that and killing babies in the womb, but it’s hard to pay for massive government spending in baby parts. Besides, Planned Parenthood needs the money to buy exotic cars!
Where jealousy comes into play in regards to taxation is two-fold. First, the Left needs us to believe people like Elon Musk are gaming the system and, thus, taking advantage of the workers of America. Second, the Left blames any lack of progress in addressing societal ills on not getting enough money from the government. And as we’ve seen in recent decades, both facets work really well to get people to support higher taxes for the evil rich.
And I don’t just mean higher tax payments, either. The Left thinks the tax brackets are too low for the wealthy, so they are always looking for ways to jack up the tax rate to stick it to The Man. If you doubt this, ask a Leftist why they don’t support a flat tax, which would mean everybody would pay the same tax rate. Their answers range from “because everybody paying the same tax rate wouldn’t be fair” to “keep licking the fascist boots of the corporate overlords, you idiot.” But, really, it boils down to this.
Leftists use taxation as a purely punitive measure.
Remember the Left’s belief in a zero-sum game as it pertains to economics? If not, it’s the notion that there is a finite amount of wealth, so any time a rich person makes money it’s at the expense of a poor person. If so, it’s the same concept, but I’m far more apologetic for repeating myself. In either case, it’s based on a faulty premise: that there’s a finite amount of money. Anyone who has followed the expansion of the national debt can see the flaws in the zero-sum game idea.
But a little thing like being divorced from reality like they were Liz Taylor or Mickey Rooney won’t stop Leftists from pushing class hatred in the name of spending other people’s money. All they have to do is make the poor and middle class hate the rich and the lack of reality won’t matter. Needless to say, but necessary to type, this has worked well and continues to work.
Beyond income taxes, the Left has ways to punish the lower and middle classes through taxation. Yes, I’m talking about gax taxes. Contrary to popular Leftist belief, oil companies aren’t gouging people at the pump by jacking up prices. Based on current calculations, those evil greedy oil companies are making…pennies on the dollar with every gallon sold. That’s not a clever turn of a phrase, mind you. I’m talking literal pennies on the dollar (and unlike the kids of today, I do mean literally in the literal sense). And when you consider the costs oil companies incur to refine oil into usable fuel, it’s a wonder they even want to keep drilling.
On the other side of the equation, there’s an entity that rakes in far more money with each gallon of gas sold and incurs none of the risks and costs to get it. If you guessed the state and federal governments, you get a gold star! And these taxes affect the working class more than the upper class. You’re more likely to see Rosie O’Donnell successfully going through Weight Watchers than to see Bill Gates topping off his tank at the local Gas and Sip.
And you’re even less likely to see Leftists support suspending gas taxes right now. After all, it’s free money, and it’s a way to punish us for continuing to use the internal combustion engine instead of being able to fork over several thousand dollars to get an electric car or a hybrid…that would also use fossil fuels like gasoline to get from point A to pointless B. There’s that word “punish” again, kids!
Now, if you’re like me and not keen on paying more taxes than owed, the Left will try to guilt you into paying more by invoking patriotism. In fact, President Pudding Cup once said paying taxes was our “patriotic duty.” Who wants to be seen as not patriotic, right? Of course, this argument might be more persuasive if a) tax dollars were being spent on the country instead of pork programs with no practical application, b) we wouldn’t get in trouble with the IRS for non-payment, c) the government typically doesn’t get rid of old taxes because free money, d) around half of the American population pay little-to-no taxes in the first place, and e) the Left didn’t hate America so much. To be fair, I’m surprised Leftists don’t scream out in pain like vampires taking a holy water shower when they wrap themselves with the American flag.
Even if I grumble at paying taxes out of fear of the IRS giving me an anal cavity search without so much as dinner and a drink, I understand the need for taxation. There are some things we need to pay for, like national defense and infrastructure, because they’re in the Constitution and make sense to spend money on. (Try beating back the Chinese Army with pool noodles, oddly enough made in China.) Having said that, we need to start drawing a few lines before we’re taxed after we die…oh, wait.
Taxes are a necessary pseudo-evil. Like with fire or Auto Tune, they are tools whose use determines whether the results are good or bad. And when they’re used for the purposes of fostering hatred and jealousy, as they are with the President’s billionaire’s tax, there can be no good outcomes.
Except, of course, if you’re sitting on a few empty Swiss bank accounts.