disconnect

I read this article on Forbes.com yesterday about Bill Gates's father and his stand on estate taxes, aka the "death tax". As you may already know, Bush is vehemently opposed to the estate tax, and his tax cuts gradually phase it out until it's completely eliminated in 2010 (and then completely reinstated in 2011 when his tax cuts expire, which is just another example of the accounting tricks used to make the true scope of the tax cuts hidden, but that's another topic).

Anyway, William Gates Sr. has written a book on the subject, "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes", and here's an example he likes to use as to why estate taxes are reasonable:

Gates warms with a parable of his own invention: Imagine, he says, that God is in his office looking over his portfolio. God's stocks are down--he's too heavy in the dot-coms--and to reverse his fortunes, he summons the next two spirits to be born on earth. He proposes an auction. The winner will be born in the United States, the loser in Ethiopia. He asks the two spirits to bid by writing down what percentage of their net worth they are prepared to cede to God upon their death. Hearing the terms, God's adviser (his accountant?) pulls him aside and says it will never work. Both spirits will certainly write 100%.

"What is it worth to be an American?" William H. Gates Sr. asks. The estate tax, he says, is a small price to pay.

The jist of his beliefs are that the only reason you were able to make your massive fortune is that we live in a country that enables you to do so, therefore you ought to give something back to ensure that the country remains able to support others in their quests for amassing giant amounts of wealth.

I was reminded of this article again last night as Robyn watched some house hunting show on some cable channel. This guy, his wife and their triplets in Anchorage, Alaska were looking for houses and settled on a 6000 sq ft house with an indoor pool (I think this one had the pool - one of them did), massive backyard and view of Cook Inlet. I don't know how much houses cost in Anchorage but I have to imagine it was at least $400,000. It was new construction too, so they had to buy several new pieces of furniture to furnish it. How could they afford this? The husband works as an engineer, and the wife stays at home with the kids. They bought this on a single engineer's salary while supporting triplets. You think maybe our country maybe supports a slightly higher standard of living than other countries? Do you think this family would be able to afford this if this guy was an engineer and lived in Iraq? Russia? Malaysia? South America? Africa? Do you think the least you can do to give back to the country that enables you to live such a charmed life is to give back a percentage of your wealth when you're dead?

Edit: I should emphasize that it's unlikely that this family would even have to pay the estate tax. The threshold for paying taxes on an estate is something like $1.5 million, though this is moving around due to the Bush tax cuts. Gates argues that this should be raised to $3.5 million ($7 million for couples) to ensure that only the very wealthy are affected.

This is a quote from the congressman in my district, Zach Wamp:

"The world is watching, and one of the reasons that people who live under theocratic rule believe that the U.S. is corrupt is that we profess to be a virtuous people, yet we are normalizing the homosexual lifestyle."

Because everyone in Iraq, North Korea, Iran, etc. are really concerned about whether or not gays can marry in the United States. Surely that's their main "U.S. is corrupt" focus, as opposed to the no-bid contracts given the Vice President's former company, or the tangled web of ties U.S. officials have with the oil markets in the Middle East, or say, the 100,000+ troops currently in a certain country invaded for WMD that wasn't there. Those people would just be so much easier to pacify if we could amend our constitution to discriminate against gays, because then they would see us as their unquestionable moral superiors.

I'm guessing I don't need to tell you that Zach Wamp is an idiot.

With the 9/11 commission's report coming out as I type this, I just wanted to draw attention to this article at the NY Times talking about the great job that Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and deputy chairman, did in making this as non-partisan a report as possible. From watching the way Kean conducted himself during the public hearings and in interviews I saw, he's got a spot on my short shortlist of Republicans I Like.

He also makes the following observation regarding partisanship in Washington D.C. which I want to focus on: "This city is so divided that I just don't see how government works anymore, how Washington works anymore." That echoes my sentiments exactly. Robyn makes fun of me a lot for my post where I said I'd like to see McCain be Kerry's VP. This wasn't because I thought he was necessarily the best candidate available, it was mainly because he was the only choice that could have any effect on all the partisan squabbling going on now. There will always be idiots on the right just as there will always be Ralph Nader on the left, but there once was a time when there was a middle ground, where people could compromise and work things out. Now it's just to the point where one party leaks to the media that an advisor for the other party is in the midst of a criminal investigation, and the leaking party makes sure all their prominent leaders get statements out to the media about what a "serious matter" it is. This coordination of an entire party being mobilized to attack someone who threatens them was especially on display during the Richard Clarke saga, where it was the entire White House staff leading the charge, but with cronies in the Senate and elsewhere like Bill Frist baselessly accusing Clarke of perjury.

This isn't going to end if Kerry gets elected either. For all the things Bush did wrong that he can fix, the right wing will still be out to get him. He may be able to work with a few moderate Republicans, but the majority or them will be cajoled into exploiting every possible opportunity to take him and Edwards down so they can get back into power. And of course if Bush wins, it's the Republicans' stated goal to consolidate power as quickly and thoroughly as possible (see Texas redistricting, 2000-2004). This was why I liked McCain as VP - there would still be wingnuts on the right frothing at the mouth at the "Massachusetts Liberal" and his traitor ally, but I thought McCain would be able to work with moderates in both parties to form a middle ground where reasonable Republicans could work and distance themselves from the extremist Republicans, who would be rightfully marginalized as the radical neo-conservatives that they are (as opposed to the current situation where they control the Republican party and the government).

Nothing good can come from the two sides fighting each other at every turn, even if I think that my side is "right" and the other guys are "wrong" so it's a noble fight. That's why I like to support reasonable Republicans like McCain and Kean, because even if you disagree with them you can listen to them and they will listen to you.

I wanted to say something about the whole thing about Sandy Berger taking classified documents, but didn't really feel like writing some big post about it, if that makes any sense. Thankfully, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has written several posts about it which say everything I wanted to say about it, and I'm sure you can go there in the future for more updates about the situation.

This is a summary of the events as of last night that he got from the Nelson Report.

This discusses the political motivations behind this leak, given that this is not a new story and the investigation has been proceeding since last winter. It also starts with a link to his original comments on the issue from Monday night.

This asks the question that I myself wondered last night as to why Berger didn't step down as Kerry's advisor since he obviously knew that the investigation was ongoing and that Republicans would probably try to use it for political advantage. I guess he thought it wasn't a big deal and was just a dumb mistake, but that's pretty naive and another one of the bizarre things surrounding this whole thing.

Finally, here's the (currently) latest post, about the accusation that Berger took documents to help out Kerry's campaign regarding weaknesses in Homeland Security. Simply put, it's pretty dumb to anyone who takes a serious look at it, but if the intention is to smear the Kerry campaign with broad accusations of crookedness regarding this investigation, that doesn't really matter. He also links to a transcript of an interview of Berger's lawyer by Wolf Blitzer on CNN which is worth a read.

My take is that assuming Berger wasn't intentionally doing something malicious, and from what I know it doesn't seem that taking the documents and notes would have even helped him do anything wrong, this was just a really dumb mistake. Also, leaking this three days before the 9/11 commission delivers their report and a week before the Democratic convention shows how low some people will stoop to deflect attention away from their own really dumb mistakes.

Here's a thought... if you're a liberal, don't go to mediamatters.org unless you want to get pissed off. They're chock full of Fox News distortions and stupid things Rush Limbaugh has said and examples of media bias, so it doesn't take long reading the site before your blood starts to boil. Ignoring anything Rush or Ann Coulter said (since they're idiots and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone), the thing that got me the most riled up was this piece about Whoopi Goldberg's comments vs. Dennis Miller's.

Since it's been hyped in the media for the past week and a half you probably all already know about Whoopi's remarks at a Democratic fundraiser, but for those who aren't in the know, Whoopi did what she does best - tell barely funny jokes. She happened to tell one pun regarding President Bush's last name, which happens to be the same word as a part of the female anatomy. Comic genius! This of course set off a firestorm of controversy, including getting Whoopi fired from her job as Slim-Fast's spokesperson. When I had the misfortune to be watching "Crossfire" on CNN, I endured the pain of having to listen to the idiot head of the RNC, Ed Gillespie, as he talked about how these comments apparently represent the heart and soul of the Democratic party. I guess even though this synonym for Bush's name has been known to everyone in fourth grade and older for the past four years, the fact that it was said at a Democratic fundraiser makes it super serious. File that fact away for a second please while I discuss Dennis Miller.

I used to consider Dennis Miller funny back when I could understand what he was saying - it's awfully hard to hear him now that his lips are pressed so tightly against George W. Bush's ass. Apparently, he introduced Bush at a rally in Wisconsin on July 14 with some comments about Kerry and Edwards that included the following:

Those two cannot keep their hands off each other, can they? ... I think I have a new idea for a new campaign slogan -- use the bumper sticker 'Hey, Get A Room.'

The new "in" thing among conservatives seems to be joking that Kerry and Edwards are gay. There's all sorts of pictures of them touching each other's arms, which I guess ranks right up there with sexually suggestive puns in the fun-o-meter. But Miller said it at a campaign rally for Bush... does that mean that that represents the heart and soul of the Republican party? Should Miller be fired from his show on CNBC? Is implying that two married men are gay more offensive than a play on words on the name "Bush"? Apparently not, given the media coverage - Whoopi's comment was mentioned 19 times on cable news networks (not shockingly, Fox News accounted for 13), while Miller's was mentioned twice, including an excellent comment by Paul Begala quoted at the aforementioned page on mediamatters.org.

I have an offer to make to Republicans out there. You can joke about Kerry and Edwards being gay, or some obscure Clinton-bashing joke hanging around from the late 90's... whatever gets you off. In exchange, us Democrats can joke about Bush's last name, or John Ashcroft's singing, or whether or not Dick Cheney drinks human blood... whatever. Because it really doesn't matter. It's a joke, and the candidates themselves aren't even saying it. So let's just say whatever stupid jokes we want to, and stop having the media cover it like it's the top story of the day, because no matter how many times Fox News tries to paint it as a huge scandal, it's a non-issue. Or, since that's never going to happen, how about we give Fox News the reputation it deserves as one small step up from Limbaugh on the ladder of useless gossip (in addition to the reputation it deserves as the propaganda arm of the Bush administration), and for CNN and other mainstream news organizations that also report this drivel, one small step up from Fox News. Then maybe we can get back to talking about actual issues that affect people's lives, if anyone still remembers what those are.

I had meant to post this on Friday but I wrote too many posts that day and didn't want to bury them all, so I'll mention it today.

Krugman on Bush's health care plan.

Unfortunately it's going to roll off into archive/pay-to-read territory soon so get it while you can. He contrasts Bush's plan with Kerry's plan and the result speaks for itself. As fun as it is to point out Bush's connections to corruption (see next post), I want to highlight reasons to vote for Kerry too as opposed to simply voting against Bush, and this is one of the stronger ones.

A while ago, in a discussion about Fahrenheit 9/11's statistic of how much time Bush spent on vacation before 9/11, I said that I was willing to bet that he spends a little less time on vacation this year because of the re-election. Looks like I'm going to win that bet.

To put it another way, when our intelligence agencies were running around on high alert in the summer of 2001 in an atmosphere of unprecedented terrorist chatter and PDB's bearing titles like "Bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S." were being delivered to the President, he spent basically the entire month of August in Crawford, TX, at his ranch, on vacation. This year however, America faces an even more sinister threat, one which may force him to work a record amount and take only TWO weeks of vacation in August... John Kerry. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to protect the country.

On an aside, if you read my post on Riggs Bank on Friday, you may have noticed them mentioned on 60 Minutes yesterday in their story on Equatorial Guinea's dictator and the large personal fortune he's amassed from his country's oil. One thing I didn't mention was that former Riggs CEO Joe Allbritton is a long-time family friend of the Bushes, enough so that on his inaugural parade, Bush spotted Allbritton and said, "Hey Joe, how are you doing?" Allbritton's wife, a member of the board, is also named in today's New York Times as being ticked that Riggs had to end its relationship with Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet. I didn't mention it because it's kind of a tenuous link, and it's not technically illegal to have all your friends be either indicted or linked to tyrants, but it's something to think about.