The Estate Tax is Much Needed

As some of you know, I consider myself to be an amateur rap artist. I rarely get political in my music, because I do that more so for fun and just to get my more “aggressive” thoughts out. Anyways, I have a new song out featuring Mr. King Jookyhimself, Mike Luke AKA DOPEHEAD, from my old neighborhood, the Dexter-Linwood Area (DLA) of Detroit’s west side. Song is called So Much Style, and it’s on YouTube here if you’d like to listen!

Anyways, on to what you’re here for.

According to The Hill, the republicans just last week have introduced a bill to completely eliminate the “Estate Tax”.  Naomi Jagoda writes:

“In December 2017 did not repeal the estate tax but it doubled the amount that will be exempt from the tax. In 2019, the exemption amount for an individual is $11.4 million. The increase in the estate tax exemption amounts expires after 2025.

The Senate Republicans argued that repealing the estate tax, which they often call the "death tax," would be beneficial to owners of small businesses and family farms.

“Often times, family-owned farms and ranches bear the brunt of this tax, which threatens families’ agricultural legacies and makes it difficult and costly to pass these businesses down to future generations," Thune said in a news release. "This way of life is integral to so many South Dakota families, which is why I remain committed to removing roadblocks for these family businesses, and we can start by repealing the death tax once and for all.”

Grassley said that "the estate tax doesn’t serve any purpose except forcing family farms and family-run businesses to waste precious capital on costly tax planning and in too many cases, paying taxes on income or property that have already been taxed once." 

But the bill is sure to be opposed by many Democrats, who argue that repealing the estate tax would help the rich and that very few taxpayers were subject to the tax even before the GOP tax law.”

Basically, the republicans are saying that rich dead people need to be able to pass ALL of their wealth down to their kids, and that taxing any of it is somehow immoral. But doesn’t that mean then that you don’t really believe in the whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality? I mean, think about it. The main argument the right wing likes to use against government programs that provide services to those in need (welfare) have a negative effect on society because it encourages laziness and people won’t want to work if they get assistance from the government. Of course that isn’t true (as of 2016, 7.6 Million Americans were considered “working poor”, meaning they have a full time job and still don’t make a living wage), but let’s give them that argument just for a moment. 

If the argument is that giving people assistance creates laziness and stifles the work ethic, then how does that same logic not apply to the children of rich people? I mean, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump (need I go on?) What hard work did any of them do to create the current wealth they enjoy so much? These people had incredible head starts that they were able to maintain and grow (Kim and Paris), or ruined on 6 different occasions that required sneaky tricks to not lose everything (President Human Waste Basket). You wanna talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Jay-Z. 50 Cent. These are people who truly “got it out the mud”. And guess what? When Jay-Z dies, I don’t want him to be able to give HALF A BILLION DOLLARS to Blue Ivy. Even they taxed Jay Z’s net worth at 90%, (for easy math we’ll say he’s a billionaire), that would leave 100 Million dollars behind for Blue Ivy. How can anyone on earth say this is unreasonable?

The republicans apparently. Good thing we have folks like Bernie Sanders still proposing common sense policies, like lowering the threshold for the estate tax, which would ultimately bring in $315 Billion over the next decade, and $2.2 Trillion when every billionaire in the USA passes away under his plan, according to Splinter.

The older I get, the more I see why my parents always said “Under republicans, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” 

Kamala Harris Isn’t Who You Might Think

Kamala Harris. Successful black woman from Oakland, CA. She worked her way up to the top and became State Attorney General in 2010. She has stated that she will no longer take corporate PAC money after the public backlash of the 2016 election where corruption became a HUGE issue that was finally being discussed in a serious way. So, that’s the good. Here’s what worries me.

1. She Didn’t Prosecute Steve Mnuchin

According to The Intercept, Steven Mnuchin, who ran OneWestBank, was guilty of committing over 1,000 instances of foreclosure violations, and the California attorney’s general office stated that if they investigated further, they would find “thousands more.” Kamala Harris, who was attorney general at the time, declined to prosecute the man who would become Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Treasury Department. Why not? She provided no explanation whatsoever when requested by the Intercept, but according to Open Secrets, between the years of 2013-2018 she raised $784,610 from the Securities and Investments industry. Coincidence that almost 60% of her campaign contributions come from the banking industry, and she chose not to prosecute a criminal banker?

2. Her Life as a Prosecutor

Not only has she fought to keep individuals facing wrongful convictions locked up, has defended the death penalty stating that the California supreme court’s ruling that it is unconstitutional was a “flawed decision”, defended her office’s decision to prevent transgender individuals from receiving gender re-assignment surgery and required medical attention, defended the 3-Strikes law, but she is pretty anti-freedom as well. Vehemently against sex-workers’ rights, opted not to join other states who attempted removing cannabis from the schedule 1 drugs list, ignored a solitary confinement lawsuit that proved that the practice was inhumane (and by ignored, I mean she flat out said it wasn’t a thing in the California prison system), is in favor of civil asset forfeiture, which is essentially legal robbery by cop. You can read more about her record here.

In my well informed opinion, Kamala Harris is a ploy by the corporate democrats to con us into voting for corporatism, but since she’s a black woman they’re gonna make it seem like not liking her is blasphemy. Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders on the other hand, are both much more in line with what everyone I know wants. Granted, Senator Harris doesn’t have a HUGE history for us to pick through, but based on the above information, she strikes me as a black Hillary Clinton. I just don’t want my fellow black people to get hyped up off the fact she is an intelligent black woman who is running for President. I know that a piece of us all wants the exact opposite of the racist, misogynist pile of human mayonnaise that’s in the White House now, and a black woman would be the perfect antithesis. However, look at the voting record. How much has she really helped us (us being black people, the average person, her constituency, etc)? Seems like she was all about locking people up for stupid shit long before Donald Trump had his minions chanting “Lock Her Up” at his rallies. Just sayin, let’s be consistent.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day

Today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (which the state I currently reside in, Arizona, did not recognize as a holiday until 1990, shout out John McCain), instead of me writing about my feelings about MLK, or how much progress we’ve made as a country since his assassination, or the lack thereof, I will post a series of articles I’ve read today, not only to shine some light on sources I use for information, but also, because everything I could possibly want to say about this great man has been said time and time again. So without further ado, here’s my list of fantastic and interesting articles about Martin Luther King the 2nd. 

1. Martin Luther King Jr and the White Delusion of a ‘Non-Racist’ America

2. The Rocky History of MLK Jr Day in Arizona

3. Meghan McCain says her father regrets opposition to MLK Day

4. Mike Pence says Donald Trump is like Martin Luther King Jr for ‘inspiring us’ with a border wall

5. Martin Luther King Jr on the record for Universal Basic Income

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day everyone. I shouldn’t be at work today. But since I am, figured I’d share some of my favorite reading daily materials, and some good articles about this hero for not only black America, but all Americans who believe in true equality.  

Policy Over Identity Politics

I just read a thread full of people just shitting on Bernie Sanders. Young people. Simply because he’s an older white man. There was literally NOTHING about policy mentioned in the video they were commenting on OR in the tweets in the thread. That scares me if that’s how people are viewing politics. “We just want a woman because women have had it rough and we’re judged harsher, so therefore it’s our time.” While I agree woman have it harder in society, policy is what creates the change we need to see equality. 

While it would be awesome to have a Woman in the White House, she MUST have the right policies. That’s why TulsiGabbard or Elizabeth Warren can get my vote but Hillary couldn’t. We have to stop being childish about politics. Would you vote for Sarah Palin simply because she’s a woman? Of course not. 

The even weirder part about all of the tweets is that these are ALL people who support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Apparently, these twitter users are unaware that Bernie and AOC essentially have the same policies. So if it’s not the policy that makes them dislike Bernie, that only leaves the identity of the individual, which in this case happens to be a straight white male. 

One thing the right wing has been saying lately that I’ve seen quite a few of my favorite progressive pundits have been in disagreement with is that the left focuses too much on identity politics and not enough on policy. A lot of people have become aware of some people on the left who essentially think all straight white men are inherently evil. Pure nonsense in my opinion. 

While I do believe this is realistically just a very loud minority, it still gives me a little reservation about whether or not we (the left) actually learned the correct lessons from the 2016 election. The establishment media CLEARLY hasn’t, and establishment within the DNC clearly hasn’t, but I really felt like the people did. I really hope that the voters prove me wrong in 2020. 

Here’s the Twitter thread that got me in my feelings.

https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1083911868438192129?s=21

Two Years of Tiny Hands Trump

So we’re two years in. Let’s see where our current President Donald “Baby Fingers” Trump is in the arena of policy accomplishments and the results that will become of these decisions.

1. Repeal of Obamacare

According to Vox, not only did he cut the previous 6 week enrollment period to just 3 weeks, he cut the ad budget from $100 Million to just $10 Million, cancelled scheduled events to assist with enrollment around the country, shut down the website for 12 hours every Sunday during said 3 week period, and has openly stated on multiple occasion how he wanted to “blow that thing up”. Now, has he successfully repealed the law? No, because the people were NOT having it. Phone calls were being made to senators, tweets were being tweeted at congressmen and women, and ad-campaigns were launched in opposition. As a result, he folded. So this right-wing, Heritage Foundation/Mitt Romney/Chuck Grassley/Newt Gingrich healthcare plan which was implemented by President Obama, all of a sudden wasn’t right wing anymore because a democrat implemented it, which means it had to be destroyed. Although he has done significant damage overall, he hasn’t fully repealed it as of now. 

2. Foreign Policy

As of today, Trump still is declaring he wants to pull out of Syria and halfway out of Afghanistan. (You can see myarticle about this, full breakdown here.) However, with some new info I’m skeptical at the moment because I heard from the homie Kyle Kulinski that Trump is planning to replace the Military troops with Blackwater style militias, which are really djust private armies. When we say private though, we mean only in operation, as they are still publicly funded institutions. So your tax dollars will still be going towards illegal invasions of sovereign nations that didn’t attack us. So this whole “pull out of Syria” thing is basically a lie. So this as of now, I file in the I Don’t Know file. 

As far as Russia and North Korea, I am always going to be in favor of being cordial with other nuclear powers who have dangerous sociopathic and even psychopathic leaders, or even just regular run of the mill leaders for that matter. Not only do I seriously doubt all of the “Russia and Vladimir Putin are controlling Donald Trump” talk (here I explain are a few good reasons why…here too), but we don’t want smoke with Russia. Not that we wouldn’t be able to overpower them easily, because we spend more 10X the amount annually on our military then they do so we would, but is it worth it? Is it worth World War 3 with effing NUKES on the playing board just because MAYBE Russia tried to spread their political alignment on the internet? Because MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE Russia had something to do with the e-mail leaks, in which we found out how Hillary Clinton and the DNC were literally corrupt to the teeth? And then there’s North Korea.  Why do we want beef with them? You never want to go to war with anyone who cares less than you. And if you look at the power grid at night, it is very clear that Kim Jong Un gives not one f—k. Trump playing nice with “Little Rocket Man” now is actually a very good thing. Remember that time everyone in Hawaii was hella scared because they thought something got launched at them from North Korea, and it was actually plausible? Yeah, we haven’t had anything like that lately have we? These two things get marked in the good file. 

Overall his foreign policy has still been garbage on account we have increased drone strikes by 400 percent, we invaded Niger, increased the military budget by an additional $80 Billion per year, put a ban on majority Muslim countries, have increased the bigotry pertaining to this stupid ass wall, pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, are backing Israel and assisting in the denial of Palestinian rights at the U.N, and sparking a trade war with China, I’d say overall his dealings overseas have been doggy doo doo. 

3. Tax Cuts

Not only did his plan NOT reduce the annual deficit as stated multiple times by himself and his colleagues, it added $779 Billion to it this year, and is expected to surpass $1 Trillion this fiscal year (2019). About $17 Billion this year of that amount will go to millionaires in savings. The rest of it? Billionaires and corporations. They also said this would increase job growth. From a literal standpoint, it did. In his first 16 months (I can’t find data on the first 24 yet) he has created about 3.2 Million jobs, which sounds pretty dope. But then you have to ask what the pay is like for those jobs. According to CNBC, 56% of Americans have unmanageable debt, 78% percent live paycheck to paycheck, and as far as how MUCH Americans make, as of December 2018 according to WalletHacks: “The number  people earning less than $39,000 accounts for 49.33% of the population. The 2018 poverty guidelines for a family of four is $25,100.” 

So overall, in the big 3 categories of Foreign Policy, Healthcare and Economy, he’s doing pretty damn horrible. There’s a few OK things in there, but overall, President Infant Palms is caca. Expect another 2 years of this. Make America Great Again. Like during the GREAT Depression, or GREAT recession. Maybe that’s what he meant all this time…

Message for the Democrats

Happy New Year everybody. I hope you guys had happy holidays and had plenty of good food, spent time with your fambam, and got blisters on your thumbs from the new NBA 2K you got for Christmas for whatever system you have. 

Now that we got that out the way, it’s time to focus. We gottaput the stupid shit to the side for a while and focus on real issues. No more Russia talk, no more “Ohmagawd Trump cursed!” fake outrage. We have to start focusing on policy. So this is my plea to the Democrats. If you do these things, you can not only regain power in government, but you can actually change the country for the better. Here’s a short list of things you should run on unapologetically like the homie Bernard Sanders (side note: I’m not sure if his real name’s Bernard).

1. Medicare for All.

2. Public funding of public colleges/universities

3. Ending all US interventions

4. Green Technology bill/Jobs Program/Infrastructure spending bill

Medicare for all is not only cheaper than our current system by anywhere from $2 Billion to $5 Billion for the American people when you factor in no longer having to pay for private insurance AND the tax increases required to make it happen, but it also covers everybody, so it’s objectively better. You’re just wrong if you think otherwise. 

Public funding of colleges/universities is a no brainer also, we already do this for all school up until 12th grade. Why can’t we just continue doing the same thru undergrad? It’s an investment in the future, it would help America to stay in the top countries on the education spectrum, and it would allow college graduates to participate in the economy in a way that matters. 

Ending all the wars is an easy way to obtain some much needed funding for some of these good ass ideas. And it would make everyone hate us WAY less. 

Green New Deal as it is often called would be a huge infrastructure bill that would essentially rid us of all oil dependency as we transitioned to renewable technology such as solar, wind, and hydro power. This would require a gang of workers, so there’s your jobs program also. It’s not like there isn’t a blueprint for this, how do you think the highways got here?  

Democrats. Focus on these 4 things, and you’ll takeover. Stop the Russia shit. Stop the Stormy Daniels shit. Stop the fake outrage. Stop taking money from super PACs and corporations and billionaires and multi-millionaires. STOP IT. Otherwise you’re gonna subject us all to another 4 years of Donald Trump. And in the famous words of Mr. Tiny Hands, that would be “SAD!”.