4 Senate "Democrats" prove they absolutely hate the poor

[Nym90]

I agree that repeal of this tax is a bad idea as things currently stand.

As for Nelson, he's the most liberal person who is likely to be able to be elected from Nebraska.

[Nym90]

I agree that repeal of this tax is a bad idea as things currently stand.

As for Nelson, he's the most liberal person who is likely to be able to be elected from Nebraska.

Is Nelson more or less conservative than Bob Kerrey?

Well that's true, Kerrey was probably overall more liberal, though he was still quite moderate.

[Nym90]

I support calling it income and taxing it at the appropriate rate.

^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, that's the best overall way to look at it. I'd support eliminating the estate tax if it was simply rolled into the regular tax structure.

[Nym90]

I thought the Democratic party was suppose to be the working man's friend; I guess not.

That hasn't been the case for a very long time.  They stopped being the working man's friend around the time they started advocating high taxes on the middle class, racial preferences, forced busing, and soft treatment of criminals.

Except that most Democrats don't support those things today, so it doesn't really make any more sense than if I argued that Republicans were racist or sexist simply because the few people who support forced segregation or whatnot tend to be Republican. Obviously both sides have their extremists, and both sets of extremists have many repulsive views, but the vast majority of both parties are comprised of good reasonable people.

I feel that overall Democratic policies (at least moderate Democratic policies) benefit the poor and middle class and small business more, and benefit the wealthy more in the long run too by strengthening the economy, though they usually hurt the wealthy and big business in the short term.

Yeah, I know you don't agree, I just have this compulsion to not let things like this stand unrefuted.

[Nym90]

You know, I wish they had voted differently. But JFern, the thing you never get is that these senators don't represent you or me or the left wing of the Democratic Party; they represent the people of their state and likely acted accordingly.

True, plus their votes didn't affect the outcome of the legislation. If they have to make votes I don't agree with in order to get reelected, and those votes don't actually affect the passage of any bills, I'd much rather have that than have them vote the "right" way and lose their bid for reelection as a result.

[Nym90]

You know, I wish they had voted differently. But JFern, the thing you never get is that these senators don't represent you or me or the left wing of the Democratic Party; they represent the people of their state and likely acted accordingly.

The estate tax affects under a percent of estates. These "Democrats" are not representing their states.

You know, I wish they had voted differently. But JFern, the thing you never get is that these senators don't represent you or me or the left wing of the Democratic Party; they represent the people of their state and likely acted accordingly.

True, plus their votes didn't affect the outcome of the legislation. If they have to make votes I don't agree with in order to get reelected, and those votes don't actually affect the passage of any bills, I'd much rather have that than have them vote the "right" way and lose their bid for reelection as a result.

These guys voted for cloture on a permanent repeal of all estate taxes. Next, they'll probably have a bill that reduces estate tax revenue by 90%, call it a comprimise bill and get the votes of these anti-poor extremists plus a few more DINOs.

Well, hopefully such a bill won't pass; if it does, and the votes of Democrats make the difference, then I will agree with you. But in the meantime, they can vote however they have to in order to get reelected and thus help the Democrats win back control of the Senate, so long as it doesn't make the difference in the outcome of the overall vote, and it doesn't bother me too much.

[Nym90]

I thought the Democratic party was suppose to be the working man's friend; I guess not.

That hasn't been the case for a very long time.  They stopped being the working man's friend around the time they started advocating high taxes on the middle class, racial preferences, forced busing, and soft treatment of criminals.

Except that most Democrats don't support those things today, so it doesn't really make any more sense than if I argued that Republicans were racist or sexist simply because the few people who support forced segregation or whatnot tend to be Republican. Obviously both sides have their extremists, and both sets of extremists have many repulsive views, but the vast majority of both parties are comprised of good reasonable people.

I feel that overall Democratic policies (at least moderate Democratic policies) benefit the poor and middle class and small business more, and benefit the wealthy more in the long run too by strengthening the economy, though they usually hurt the wealthy and big business in the short term.

Yeah, I know you don't agree, I just have this compulsion to not let things like this stand unrefuted.

What do you mean they don't support these things?  Do you read the newspapers?  Seriously.  Do you mean to tell me the Democrats don't support racial preferences or higher taxes?  And that the liberal wing is not highly sympathetic to criminals?  They even still support forced busing in theory; it's just that now there's no practical way to do it since the white middle class has been driven out of the areas where they successfully implemented this policy.

You should only know how the liberal Democrats in the New York State assembly block any bill that is intended to crack down on crime.  There must be a very different Democratic party out in Michigan than there is around here.

It is possible that some of these things may be supported by a majority of liberals, although even that is debateable. Obviously Connecticut and New York Democrats are more liberal than those in Michigan, that's true, and there are local differences.

But even if a majority of liberals did support them, liberals are still only about half or less of the Democratic party as a whole, so I think my statement that a majority of Democrats don't support these things still holds true.

Most Democrats certainly don't support a middle class tax increase, I certainly don't think the majority would support busing, the majority wouldn't support going soft on criminals (I guess it depends on how you define "soft" of course, but I'm not seeing any major push to decrease criminal sentences or anything like that..most Democrats don't even support complete elimination of the death penalty even if you consider that position as being soft on crime, which is of course itself debateable given the moral implications and other considerations involved).

Affirmative action is a policy which has strong support within a small part of the Democratic party, and certainly is not actively supported by most within the party; it's certainly not something that I've heard anyone seriously propose increasing.

Obviously some poll numbers on these things would be nice to see as I'm not aware of any recent such polls, but I think the things I've said are reasonable.