Run In With Mr. Edwards

In article ,
(C Kingsbury) wrote:

Meanwhile the
notion of a luxury tax, tried under Bush I, was so thoroughly
discredited by experience that it likely won't be heard from for
another generation. It devastated the boatbuilding industry so badly
even the big lefties had to admit it was a dumb idea.

really? Somehow I missed the big lefties admitting that. Do you
have a source for that? I'm not challenging you, I'd just like
to see it.

--
Bob Noel
Seen on Kerry's campaign airplane: "the real deal"
oh yeah baby.

Bob Noel wrote:
In article ,
(C Kingsbury) wrote:


Meanwhile the
notion of a luxury tax, tried under Bush I, was so thoroughly
discredited by experience that it likely won't be heard from for
another generation. It devastated the boatbuilding industry so badly
even the big lefties had to admit it was a dumb idea.


really? Somehow I missed the big lefties admitting that. Do you
have a source for that? I'm not challenging you, I'd just like
to see it.

There was a 10% surcharge on cars over $30K, airplanes over $100K and
boats over some number I don't recall right now. The boating industry
was hit the hardest because there are lots of small boat builders who
build high end boats. These people were effectively shut down as orders
dried up. What the lefties failed to realize was that these purchases
were nearly 100% discretionary. As such sales dried up completely for
the boats and thousands were left out of work and hundrreds of small
companies went bankrupt. Virtually no tax money was collected. You'll
never see a stick it top the rich surcharge like that again.

Newps wrote:

What the lefties failed to realize was that these purchases
were nearly 100% discretionary. As such sales dried up completely for
the boats and thousands were left out of work and hundrreds of small
companies went bankrupt. Virtually no tax money was collected.

Beechcraft took their cancelled aircraft orders and pointed out that the income taxes
from the workers that would have built those planes totalled more than Beech paid in
luxury taxes. That helped.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

"Newps" wrote in message
...
There was a 10% surcharge on cars over $30K, airplanes over $100K and
boats over some number I don't recall right now. The boating industry
was hit the hardest because there are lots of small boat builders who
build high end boats. These people were effectively shut down as orders
dried up. What the lefties failed to realize was that these purchases
were nearly 100% discretionary. As such sales dried up completely for
the boats and thousands were left out of work and hundrreds of small
companies went bankrupt. Virtually no tax money was collected. You'll
never see a stick it top the rich surcharge like that again.

I was working at Hatteras Yachts designing megayachts (92ft and up) at the
time. I was fairly liberal back then and right out of college. I wasn't
making much money, so soaking the rich felt like a good thing to do. Heck,
they can afford it, right? Greedy fat *******s.

Boy was I ignorant. Layoffs began within a couple of months of the passage
of that stupid tax. We also had a recession at the time. Rich folks are the
ones who can weather a recession and will still spend money, but that tax
deterred them from spending money on things like yachts. It essentially
destroyed the place. I never got laid off, but things got really bad for the
ones left behind. Hatteras survived, but many of its competitors did not.
The local economy was also adversely affected as well.

What a stupid tax! Any policy based on class envy should be examined
extremely closely. I am also very suspicious of very wealthy polititians who
want to penalize wealthy people by increasing their taxes. Will they really
put their John Hancock on a tax that could cost them huge bucks personally?

-Trent
PP-ASEL

"Trent Moorehead" wrote in message ...

I am also very suspicious of very wealthy polititians who
want to penalize wealthy people by increasing their taxes. Will they really
put their John Hancock on a tax that could cost them huge bucks personally?


Something tells me no matter what happens, Laurie David and Teresa
Heinz will always manage to dig enough $100s from out between the sofa
cushions to gas up their Gulfstreams, but there's a very real chance I
will not be able to muster the dimes to fly my Cessna.

It's been said that the people who get hit the hardest are those who
fall into the low-mid range of the upper income band, say
$175k-$300k/year. Enough, in other words, to pay most of their income
at the top marginal rate, but still not enough to start playing the
income-shifting games that the big-big money guys can to shelter their
earnings.

A hard group of people to muster much sympathy for, perhaps, but that
should not be a primary determinant of the merits of policy.

-cwk.

In article , "Trent Moorehead"
writes:

What a stupid tax! Any policy based on class envy should be examined
extremely closely. I am also very suspicious of very wealthy polititians who
want to penalize wealthy people by increasing their taxes.

It was worse than stupid. Not only did it not collect very much (since people
simply avoided it by purchasing abroad, or not at all) it actually ended up as
a massive net loss to governments at all levels, by tax revenues lost from all
of the businesses that supported the industry, as well as the cost of the
benefits paid to the newly unemployed workers.

This is why luxury taxes in general don't generate very much revenue. Since
they are on "luxuries", which by definition are things that people can easily
live without, it is a simple tax to avoid. This is why the government would
rather tax things that you can't easily do without, such as energy,
transportation, or communications. (Remember Al Gore's BTU tax?)

There was a great study some time back, about the dangers of "envy" and
"revenge". It made the case that people are actually willing to suffer a net
loss, if they actually believe that somebody else that they don't like (like
"the rich") is getting socked worse that they are. This is a very dangerous
phenomenon in a supposed "democracy".

John

"Newps" wrote in message
...

really? Somehow I missed the big lefties admitting that. Do you
have a source for that? I'm not challenging you, I'd just like
to see it.

There was a 10% surcharge on cars over $30K, airplanes over $100K and
boats over some number I don't recall right now. The boating industry
was hit the hardest because there are lots of small boat builders who
build high end boats. These people were effectively shut down as orders
dried up. What the lefties failed to realize was that these purchases
were nearly 100% discretionary. As such sales dried up completely for
the boats and thousands were left out of work and hundrreds of small
companies went bankrupt. Virtually no tax money was collected. You'll
never see a stick it top the rich surcharge like that again.

Not only was virtually no revenue collected, but the costs were significant
(companies that go under don't pay ANY taxes, unemployment, etc.)

In article , Newps
writes:

You'll never see a stick it top the rich surcharge like that again.

Are you kidding? Kerry has already proposed one.

John

Bob Noel wrote in message ...
In article ,
(C Kingsbury) wrote:

Meanwhile the
notion of a luxury tax, tried under Bush I, was so thoroughly
discredited by experience that it likely won't be heard from for
another generation. It devastated the boatbuilding industry so badly
even the big lefties had to admit it was a dumb idea.

really? Somehow I missed the big lefties admitting that. Do you
have a source for that? I'm not challenging you, I'd just like
to see it.

I'm probably extrapolating a bit too much from wishful thinking but I
strongly doubt we'll see anything like it again for a while.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/ThisW...ll_030112.html

The fact that the tax battered companies in Maine, Massachusetts, and
Rhode Island had a lot to do with the fact that Congress set a
land-speed record rescinding it. New taxes usually take generations to
get rid of; this one took less than a decade.

Likewise, it's easy to demonize the owners of G-Vs, but every senator
would kill to have Gulfstream build a new factory in their state.

Best,
-cwk.