Transterrestrial Musings

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This quote makes me ill.

Let's see...who are the people who "need" and "deserve" my money? Well, that would be people who generally don't pay taxes. Yeah, that's fair. I would like Clark to explain to me how it is unfair that someone gets to keep more of his own money.

Apparently, one must "give" for the "priviledge" of living in this great country. Wait...you mean the taxes I pay are a gift? Aren't gifts, by definition, voluntary? Does that mean that when I pay taxes, I'm "giving", rather than the government "taking"? I wonder if the IRS will let me take a charitable deduction for all of the taxes I pay.

That's right, Clarkie. The founding principles of this country were self-sacrifice, collectivism, and involuntary wealth transfer. Pffffttt!!!

Check out the various websites that summarize this guy's thoughts on various issues. Affirmative action? Check. Nanny-state approach to health care? Check. the U.N.? Well, we should seek its blessings, because it would make all of our actions "legitimate". Oh, and we need to politely ask our "allies" for their suggestions for dealing with a miriad of issues, rather than determine on our own what is best for the USA and act accordingly. That would be, you know, "unilateral".

Posted by Michael M at September 16, 2003 12:00 PM

I wish I could remember the source, but I rather liked it when Clark was chararacterized as "a MacClellan for the 21rst century."

Posted by Mike E at September 16, 2003 12:36 PM

My favorite response to people who start blathering about how it's okay to soak the middle-class and the rich for taxes because 'they can afford it' is this:

Yeah, well you can afford to donate a kidney, but I don't see you standing in line.

Posted by Celeste at September 16, 2003 01:03 PM

Capitalism could be truly great if endowed every individual with a basic, guaranteed income. It would preserve the constant innovation of capitalism with financial security for citizens. It would lead to automation of drudge jobs people hate and free them to fulfill their talents by seeking employment in a higher capacity or utilizing their talents in some other way for the good of society. You guys have to realize that eventually we'll need to go to a system like this anyway simply because artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies will make a lot of human labor obsolete.

Posted by How to Save Capitalism at September 16, 2003 04:40 PM

The Articles of Confederation, 1781 (which founds the United States of America)
Article VIII.
All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare, and allowed by the united states in congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value of all land within each state, granted to or surveyed for any Person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the united states in congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several states within the time agreed upon by the united states in congress assembled

It's a property tax. In that day and age - inherently progressive. And no taxation without representation in an age when suffrage was predicated on economic means implys a progressive tax scheme.

Federalist 12 is all about "where and who can we get the money from" not "should we get it in the first place".

Posted by Duncan Young at September 16, 2003 05:19 PM

"...in proportion to the value of..." to any reasonable person would mean a flat tax, not a progressive one.

Not to mention the fundamental differences between property and income taxes...

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 16, 2003 06:16 PM

Capitalism could be truly great if endowed every individual with a basic, guaranteed income.

That's been tried; it creates welfare bums.

Next!

Posted by Troy at September 16, 2003 06:38 PM

Not to mention the fundamental differences between property and income taxes...

The quote you provide does not mention the word "income".

And in 1781, the people with land *were* the wealthy. (You have to account for their ability to feed themselves in that equation).

Posted by Duncan Young at September 16, 2003 09:55 PM

Actually, the quote implicitly refers to income taxes. Clark said these things with respect to his disagreement over Bush's INCOME tax cuts.

Posted by Michael M at September 17, 2003 06:03 AM

The most egregious of Bush's tax cuts are the estate tax repeal and the divident tax cut. There is more going on here than just income tax.

Posted by Duncan Young at September 17, 2003 02:12 PM

Dividend taxes are income taxes, on a particular kind of income. In a sense, so are estate taxes.

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 17, 2003 02:16 PM

Duncan,

There are many taxes here in the States, imposed by a variety of authorities, state, county, local, and Federal.

But they should not be conflated (unless you're going to comment on the sum total of taxes).

Wesley Clark's comments were on income taxes. AFAIK, the only taxes that are imposed in a progressive manner (i.e., the rate increases for higher amounts) is income taxes. AFAIK, sales taxes, for example, are a straight percentage. (Although different ITEMS might be taxed at different RATES.)

If you're going to claim that the issue is taxes in general, then referring to Clark's comments regarding progressive income taxes is discussing apples and kumquats, if not apples and broccoli. Both are from plants, but otherwise, they're not very closely related at all.

Posted by Dean at September 17, 2003 02:20 PM

Dean, look again: Clark is discussing "the tax cuts" in toto. Bush's tax cuts include those on federal dividend, estate and the income taxes (for Rand's benefit, I am using "income taxes" to refer to that tax imposed on salary and wages that does not directly go to the federal Trust funds); not including the termination of estate tax in discussions of benefits and costs has been an ongoing rhetorical trick by this adminstration.

Progressive taxation means increasing the rate of taxation on greater amounts. Federal estate taxes only apply to the very largest estates in this country (over $2 million IFAICK). So they are progressive. Whether the increase in rate is a step fuction or a curve is irrelevent to the definition.

Now I dont deny that the current Constitution contained a clause forcing any direct tax to be a flat tax - which was accidently repealed by the Republican Party in the early twentieth century. I was making the ponit that the original articles of confedration did not contain such a proviso.

Cheers,
Duncan

Posted by Duncan Young at September 17, 2003 03:34 PM

I fail to see how that supports the notion that "progressive taxation was one of the founding principles of this country." You'd be hard pressed to find any founder who even proposed, let alone defended, such a notion. Sorry, but whatever his other faults or virtues, General Clark remains an historical ignoramus.

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 17, 2003 10:23 PM

> whatever his other faults or virtues, General
> Clark remains an historical ignoramus.

Because of a single quote?! Or do you have other examples of this?

MARCU$

Posted by Marcus Lindroos at September 18, 2003 09:41 AM

Federalist no. 12 twelve talks admiringly about the progressive taxation in the U. K. as a method for rasing revenue - but rejects it for the United States of that time purely on the basis that it isn't practical in a country lacking wealthy people and a robust civil bureaucracy.

Now, if we really want to get into pointless semantic arguments - when was this country founded?

I 'm an optimist. I think it is still in the process.

Certainly the founding of United States as great power and the implementation of progressive taxation go hand-in-hand - not thru for any lofty redistribusionism reason but just because it is an efficent way of raising money for a big military.

By the way, the fact he is apparently a SF buff aside, I am not convinced of Clark's qualities as a candidate.

Thanks for pointing out Volokh's comment.

Posted by Duncan Young at September 18, 2003 09:50 AM

Because of a single quote?

Coming from someone who claims to want to be President of the Republic, yup. It's sufficient.

Not that there aren't a lot of other good reasons not to vote for him, of course...

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 18, 2003 10:11 AM

Because of a single quote?

Coming from someone who claims to want to be President of the Republic, yup. It's sufficient.

You might have dug yourself a great big hole there, Rand.

"Bushisms"

Posted by Duncan Young at September 18, 2003 10:25 AM

"Bushisms"

What about them (of course, most of them are mythological, anyway)? Have any of them demonstrated such a lack of knowledge of the foundations of our Republic as General Clark's statement? I don't think that the occasional malapropism compares to that.

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 18, 2003 02:28 PM

Well there was this one about the very recent history of the Republic:

"[W]e gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region."

?President Bush, in a Q and A with reporters after an Oval Office meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, July 14.

"Yesterday [the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission], the [International] Atomic [Energy] Agency, and myself got information from the United States authorities that it would be prudent not to leave our staff in the [Iraq] region. I have just informed the Council that we will withdraw the UNMOVIC and Atomic Agency inspectors. ?"

?U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a Q and A with reporters, announcing the reluctant withdrawal of U.N. inspectors from Iraq, as necessitated by the imminent U.S. invasion, March 17.

From Chatterbox.

But I'm getting off topic now.

Posted by Duncan Young at September 18, 2003 05:24 PM

>> "Bushisms"

> What about them (of course, most of them are
> mythological, anyway)? Have any of them
> demonstrated such a lack of knowledge of the
> foundations of our Republic as General Clark's
> statement? I don't think that the occasional
> malapropism compares to that.

C'mon Rand -- this is a ridiculous double standard. The list of factually incorrect Bushisms is far, far longer than Clark's single mistake.
---
Besides, Clark's strong selling point would be his strong military/foreign policy experience rather than historical trivia. Assuming the situation in Iraq doesn't improve or even gets worse, he would then be in a great position to say "I told you so!" and then explain (based on his Kosovo experience) how to get the U.S. out of this honorably. See David Ignatius' column in WP ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45006-2003Sep8.html ).

MARCU$

Posted by Marcus Lindroos at September 19, 2003 12:47 AM

C'mon Rand -- this is a ridiculous double standard. The list of factually incorrect Bushisms is far, far longer than Clark's single mistake.

"Clark's single mistake" is a fundamental lack of understanding of the values of the people who founded this country, and wrote the Constitution that he's sworn to defend.

That's much more serious to me than some possibly factual errors or mistatements on recent events. One's a matter of knowledge, the other's a matter of fundamental philosophy that's critical to public policy. He will never get my vote (short of hime recanting this statement and providing some evidence that he actually does understand out nation's political history, which isn't going to happen).

And as for Clark's political knowledge and judgement, I'll go with the British commander who refused his order to take the airfield from the Russians--"Sorry, but I'm not going to start World War III for you."

He's not a general--like McClellan, he's a politician, and a showhorse. And the fact that he's being pushed by the Clinton machine ices the cake.

Posted by Rand Simberg at September 19, 2003 12:51 PM

From his official position:

"We?ve had a principle in this government for almost 100 years of progressive taxation? We believed in some degree of redistribution of income to insure everybody had a certain safety net under them, a certain equality of opportunities. Government has a legitimate role in doing this.?

http://www.meetclark.com/faq/index.asp?faqid=28

I assume that if you would agree with this, and take it as recanting his off-the-cuff remark (not sure of the temporality), he can expect your vote.

Posted by cam at September 24, 2003 04:04 PM

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