Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Where have all the conservatives gone?

As an atheist the principle of the First Amendment is very important to me. A principle I understand quite well. What you missed is that in order or our government to fund something, whether it is a charity or a religion it must first chose the one it is to fund. That is why I said "a religion." My comment was about the action our government would take after it had chosen a religion.
In regards to the First Amendment the word establishment only means to fund a religion with taxes. Again, my saying "a religion" is that the funds cannot given until after one has been chosen. The phrasing of the First Amendment was to prevent Congress from choosing any religion.

That's because there isn't a conflict between them. The problem here is not the Lemon Test. The problem is caused by those who want turn our country into the Christian nation they think it is. They want to make our government a Christian government. These "Christians" constantly claim that because the words separation of church and state are not in our Constitution that they should not be kept apart. These "Christians" don't understand that when Jefferson wrote that phrase he was talking about the First Amendment.

Taking your statements slightly out of order, you say, "The phrasing of the First Amendment was to prevent Congress from choosing any religion." I completely agree. It does not require it to decide to support any particular religion, but religion in general (otherwise they would have said so). As Jefferson stated, it was not picking one religion over another (although that is prohibited too), but simply promoting religion. (I can go into detail as to why chaplains and such are not prohibited, but I don't think that is necessary here.)

"In regards to the First Amendment the word establishment only means to fund a religion with taxes." I don't find support for that anywhere. Perhaps you can provide a citation to something? Again, yes, that would be expressly prohibited, but it is hard to reconcile that view with either the language of the Constitution itself or its interpretation for about 200+ years. Indeed, I can give a few examples of "Establishment" that do not require expenditure of funds, some of which I mentioned earlier but you did not address.

Because I left the other points for later, I feel obliged to address them now. In response to my contention:
You replied: I need to address this in detail, starting with the last - with which I completely disagree. There are two specific provisions that contradict your contention: The Preamble, and Art. I, Section 8 - the "General Welfare" clauses. Now, I know you are going to once again quote Madison to say that "general welfare" doesn't mean anything, but that view a) was expressed after-the-fact, and b) not the majority view of the founders or commentators (See, e.g., Federalist 30 and 34; Justice Storey's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States), nor the one that has prevailed in the Supreme Court (See U.S. v. Butler (1936); Helvering v. Davis (1937) (upholding the Social Security Act); and South Dakota v. Dole (1984) (upholding the National Minimum Drinking Age Act).

Having laid that out in detail, let me get to the other points. I'm going to take them in reverse order: You claim, "The money that is taxed by Unified Gift and Estate Tax has already been taxed!" Almost entirely untrue. I have addressed this issue at length in numerous posts, but the short answer is, that taxes are only imposed upon a "taxable event". (This was my area of practice for most of my career.) In most Estate and Gift Tax scenarios, that "taxable event" has never happened. As an example: Parents buy a house for $30,000.00. 30 years later, they die. The $350,000 house passes to their son. That $320,000 "gain" has never been taxed. The same would be true for a 401(k), an IRA, and most capital assets, such as stocks or bonds. In short, it's just not true. That is why I favor treating Estate and Gift transfers just like any other income - as it is always income to the recipient.

RE: "The rich pay MORE than their fair share!" Also, not "true." The argument is usually supported by misleading statistics. (See, e.g., Tax Foundation) "The rich already pay most of the income taxes collected." While true, in general, it depends heavily on what one means by "rich" and by "most". In gross dollar figures, it can be true, but in tax rate, it is not: FACT SHEET: TAXING WEALTHY AMERICANS (Americans for Tax Fairness). Those figures are old, but the situation has actually gotten worse. The reality is that the "rich" earn more than the average taxpayer, but pay less tax on their income, largely because more of their income is in tax-benefited forms (like capital gains, dividends, and pass-throughs).

Where you and I might agree is with the proposition that all income should be taxed the same way regardless of form.

Finally, you stated "Rather than a progressive income tax, which is a disincentive to create wealth, a better tax policy would be a flat tax of say 5%, with no exemptions." First, there is no empirical evidence that income taxes are a disincentive to create wealth. Indeed, the opposite is demonstrably true. Second, a 5% tax would not begin to cover even the majority of government expenses. Finally, you realize that when you create an "exemption" for the first $50,000.00, that is progressive, right?

In response to my last point...You responded... well, basically, you didn't respond at all, but ducked this issue.

I said You replied

You responded That, my friend, is just asinine. If one acknowledges that a problem exists, and that the government created it... one can only expect the government to correct it by public pressure. "WE" ARE THE GOVERNMENT (Remember that whole "representative democracy" thing?). At the very least, "they" can stop doing the stupid/illegal thing. At best, we can create programs and incentives to counteract the bad things that the government is doing. (Your reference, by the way, was neither germane nor reasonable.)

In-Come: a combination of two words representing money or other assets being received.

In-come tax: one method of raising funding for the operations of the government.

Two comments on this. First, you explained the gain on an asset as a taxable event, but you didn’t as strongly make the point that the transfer of assets is a taxable event in itself. The “double taxation” notion forgets that the dead person is not the one paying estate taxes, it is the new owner of the dough who is getting income. A transaction takes place that isn’t so different than receiving a paycheck, except that the recipient didn’t trade work for the income.

That leads to comment #2 - I think it is so incredibly strange that people unquestioningly accept that income from working, which is a matter of trading chunks of one’s life for money, is okay to be taxed, but that income from windfalls (including inheritance) and gains from investments (where the capital, or luck does the work) should be exempted. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

"In regards to the First Amendment the word establishment only means to fund a religion with taxes."

Senator Hatrack, I think you may be mistaken in your equating establishment of religion to funding "a religion with taxes."

I submit for your perusal and the review of other ranters' this wonderful read Religious Freedom, by Matthew J. Franck, hosted on the Roots of Liberty website.

Good discussion above

I couldn't agree more.

In my view, all "income" should be taxed the same. But an exemption for an exchange of labor seems a reasonable policy. A payroll tax, however, also seems reasonable to me, for particular programs like SS and Medicare.

I also think Warren's wealth tax is a reasonable approach, much like the AMT, to capturing income gains that have otherwise gone untaxed. The wealthy have the ability to hide/disguise/defer income "gains" that ordinary citizens do not. (I have no offshore accounts, for example.) That was my bailiwick for some time (estate & financial planning). It's a way of reexamining what a "taxable event" is.

I have never understood (except as a sop to rich donors) what justifies a "capital gains" rate. It's even worse for dividends and inheritance. It's based on a false financial argument and always has been - just like arguments against a progressive tax system. In a tax-neutral economy, people are going to make investments they feel are sound, regardless of tax consequences, and that is how it should be.

Giving tax "incentives" is the worst kind of "market manipulation", yet is favored by so-called "conservatives" all the time. As long as it favors their people.

I commend you on the find, Ujest. That was, indeed, an excellent read! (I wish I'd written it.)

To understand why Madison and Jefferson thought that religions were established by getting funds from the state it helps to read biographies of about them. (I've read about six or seven biographies of Madison and several biographies of Jefferson.) By reading biographies of these two, as I'm sure you have, you learn about the influences on their lives. For Madison and Jefferson one of the things that motivated them was that the Anglican Church was the established religion in the colony of Virginia. The Anglican (Church) religion was established because it was supported by taxes. All Virginians paid taxes to support the Anglicans. They could be members of the religion of their choice but had to pay taxes to support the Anglicans. The Anglicans were [i]the[/i established religion because was supported by taxes while no other religions were.

Hat, you would be correct (I've read biographies of both). I would point out, moreover, that both were strident supporters of anti-religious-establishment - in all forms. As noted briefly in the Ujest's reference, they both advocated for the strict separation. Madison was responsible for getting the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Jefferson, passed.