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gret posted:Yeah Newsom is a horrible person (sleeping with his campaign chief's wife) but he was one of the few saner politicians from San Francisco who managed to keep the crazies on the BoS in check. He did other horrible things, too, like kicking the residents of a homeless shelter out so he could talk about how there really were beds available. "Care Not Cash" wasn't a bad idea in an ideal setting, but without actually improving the 'care' bit it was a victim-blaming clusterfuck.
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May 8, 2014 12:11
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Leperflesh posted:I never heard about that, and actually had the impression that care not cash had been pretty successful at actually making a difference for homeless people, unlike the efforts of basically every previous mayor. I distinctly remember willie brown's homeless policy being "send waves of cops to sweep through golden gate park and arrest them, and while we're at it, be sure to confiscate and destroy all their belongings". That's a really low bar to clear, though. quote:Under "care not cash" we stopped giving cash to the homeless, but I thought there was also some large increase in the number of beds available per night, plus a focus on improving the various social services for homeless people. Was that all just a sham? Mostly a sham, yeah, a lot of those things were actually getting cut at the same time, and it ignored that there's a large spectrum of things that still needed cash. It was the more 'liberal' version of the typical mayor attack on the homeless, but it was still blaming the homeless and dicking around with the tiny amount of money that goes to them as though that'd solve poo poo. Like I said, in an ideal world, it'd be fine, but we're not, and he knew that, and it wasn't paired with real improvements to the care system.
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May 8, 2014 18:28
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Leperflesh posted:The wikipedia article on Care Not Cash is pretty positive, suggesting at the end that the homeless population of SF went down by quite a lot by 2007. No, it doesn't. Nowhere does the Wiki article say that, and in fact, it has Newsom admitting the opposite. quote:I'm afraid "real improvements" probably could never have involved opening up a large number of new beds for the homeless, which is of course the fundamental issue in san francisco, for all the reasons we've been discussing on the last several pages: NIMBYism and the difficulty of getting new affordable housing constructed. The other half of the coin is the way Reagan destroyed the mental health care system in this country in the 1980s. I give Newsom credit for making some kind of difference in a situation where the resources to really solve the problem just aren't available to a city mayor. Credit for what? What actually happened that you're giving him credit for?
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May 8, 2014 18:40
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Leperflesh posted:A decrease from 2497 to 333. Newsom's admission doesn't seem to correspond with the data presented. Do you have citations for any of this? The homeless problem has never been 'ignored', anyway. it's always been front and center. And when you protest against 'victim-blaming' and call cash payments to the homeless 'booze subsidies' it's kind of hard to take you seriously. quote:What do you think he should have done differently? I mean specifically, given the lack of additional funds being available at the time, given the lack of any will on the part of voters to have homeless people housed in their neighborhoods, given the lack of state or federal funding for free mental health care, and given that whatever programs SF implemented would be basically guaranteed to attract homeless people from other bay area cities. Worked his butt off to get funding increased, not done sweetheart deals with developers and instead insisted on more low-income and section 8 housing being built.
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May 8, 2014 19:58
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My grandfather bought a house in Presidio Heights back in the 60s. I won't even tell you how much it's worth now, but holy poo poo, it's worth a ton. It is a beautiful, old-fashioned house. A little mansion-ish (it's got an elevator in it), but only three suite-bedrooms, so not grandiose. I'd really love if my family could hold onto it after my parent's die, but I don't care about that as much as I care about other stuff, like making San Francisco not just a playground for the rich. I also think the income disparity is way too freaking huge in this country, and I'm going to benefit massively from the outrageous break I'll get on estate tax, as well as the Prop 13 passing-down to kids thing. I'd like Prop 13 to be revoked, and for estate taxes to go up a lot. This may mean I have to sell the house when I inherit, which would be very sad, but I'd be consoled by having millions of dollars. I don't think prop 13 is the sole contributor to the enormous spike in housing prices, but it is part of it, as well as what it generally represents: a tax break for those with capital, and gently caress-all for those without it. So as someone who'll be personally affected and lose a cherished family home if Prop 13 gets revoked, I say bring it the gently caress on, revoke it. It'll be sad but you know what? I haven't actually done anything special in life to deserve a presidio heights mansion, so on what grounds would I really campaign? Basically, natetimm, stop trying to talk on behalf of people who'll be affected by this.
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May 30, 2014 00:34
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natetimm posted:
Why, though? Seriously, I wonder about this from people with your mentality: Given that we're a capitalist society, how hard is it to see that giving breaks to people to pass down capital with tax breaks increases income disparity? It seems to me you can either prize individual initiative and the idea of a somewhat level playing field, or you can rabidly defend inheriting enormous advantages. If you do the latter, that's defensible in a Hobbesian way, but don't pretend that the results don't compound: If someone starts out with a million dollars, then they pass down to their kids stuff they didn't work for, as well as stuff they did. Basically, why does labor get so despised by people with your ideology?
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May 30, 2014 02:35
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natetimm posted:
This really doesn't answer my question in the least, it just slips to the side and dodges it while tugging at heartstrings. It's basically an endorsement of the buildup of wealth inequality over generations. How does your answer address the situation of second-generation wealth, where the person grew up rich and was one of the 'lucky ones' precisely because of our generously low inheritance taxes and an enormous boon of Prop 13's property tax rate being passed on down to them?
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May 30, 2014 10:31
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natetimm posted:Why is it someone's job or mission in life to make sure every working person gets knocked down the the completely lowest peg possible in life? These cheap rhetorical ploys don't really work well. Let's deconstruct what's wrong with that sentence. First of all, we're not necessarily talking about working people, or the work and the house may be incidentally related. I'm going to inherit the house whether I work or not. I can lie around the house all day and I'll still have, y'know, a multi-million dollar house. Second, you're talking about working people getting 'knocked down' by being deprived of inheritance: something they literally didn't work for. If my parents wanted to, it would be their right to deed that house over to the Catholic Church or another one of their favorite charities. I wouldn't expect them to do it without talking to me, but I haven't done a lick of work to earn that house. Likewise, if someone bought a house for 60K and its appreciated in value because of the market to 500K, they didn't work for that 440K in appreciated value. Either in inheritance, or in increased value of the home, we're explicitly not talking about something that someone worked for. Finally, nobody is proposing anywhere close to a 100% inheritance tax, so it's not about knocking people down to the lowest peg possible. We have huge exemptions for estates now--$5,340,000, and that's without using any fancy instruments. If we lowered that back down to an exemption of a million--they'd still be getting a million! It's not the lowest possible peg to inherit a million dollars. Your argumentation is so much on the weak side I'm starting to wonder if you're just being a sophist here. I mean, like this: quote:Should true progressive values be rooted in attempting to bring people up out of poverty and bad situations or should it be a game of whack-a-mole where every time one of the working poor gets a helping hand up everyone gangs up to smack him back down into his perceived place because life is unfair otherwise? Who the hell are you talking about with the working poor being whacked down? The worst possible scenario is that someone who bought a house for much less than its worth now has to sell it and then has that increased amount of money. Using this weird violent wording, talking about how we're 'ganging up' and 'smacking him back down' really just makes you look strange, it's not effective because it's so obviously far away from reality. The working poor are much less likely to own a house, the working poor are much less likely to own a house in an area that's strongly appreciated in value, and if they have, then they are no longer the working poor, they'll have a substantial amount of money. You appeal to emotion constantly, and it gets old a lot faster than you think. Try addressing the actual substance of the arguments instead of foaming at the mouth about the crab analogy and games of whack-a-mole.
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May 30, 2014 14:18
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natetimm posted:The basis of your argument is typical socialist rhetoric that somehow a parent shouldn't be able to pass down the fruits of their labor to a child because it isn't fair to anyone else who didn't have a parent to do that for them. It's not socialist rhetoric, though. It's also bootstrappy as gently caress. quote:That's bullshit crab mentality and sour grapes, period. Again, these folksy appeals to emotion aren't a replacement for an actual argument. There's a problem that's been brought up. You have no answer for it except appealing to all the feels. quote:It's fine that you don't think that people should be able to do it, but a majority of people disagree with you and that specific mentality. And that can change. An appeal to majority opinion is a description of the current moment, that's all. quote:Your idea that the government should be going through motions to put people as close to zero to enforce an ideal of collective poornes and fairness is only keeping everyone equal by keeping everyone down. Again, cheap ploys like talking about 'collective poorness', 'close to zero'; it's Fox-news level argument. You didn't address anything I actually brought up in my post, like: Even if we lower the inheritance tax threshold to a million and repeal prop 13, people inheriting are still going to inherit, they're still gaining something, a very large leg-up over someone who isn't. You're pretending the proposal is for everyone to have all inherited wealth taken away: nobody is saying that. That you need to stretch things so far to make your non-argument shows the inherent weakness in it, and probably that you actually know that it's that weak.
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May 30, 2014 14:44
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natetimm posted:Prop 13 exists because property taxes were doubling every year and people were being priced out of their homes and forced to move. People can whine about that being propaganda but it's not hard to provide proof of it actually happening. Why do you think the situation should go back to that? WHen claiming that it's not hard to provide proof, then you should go ahead and do so. Especially of the property taxes doubling every year bit--that's a very strong claim, and it's interestingly unbounded. For how long did they double every year? How much did the house appreciate for during this? Is having to move some sort of ultimate evil to be avoided, and if so, why ignore that Prop 13 also increases home prices? quote:What's wrong with someone getting a leg up from their parents? Okay, this is getting kind of pathetic. What's wrong has been stated over and over: That it creates passed-down wealth that increases wealth inequity generationally, especially since we're in a capitalist society where owning capital gives you access to a lot of wealth generation that non-capital owners don't have. And again, the most extreme I've suggested is that people get a max of a million dollars from their parents before getting the money taxed. They're still getting a leg up. A million dollars is a leg up. Pretending that it isn't, that I'm saying something else, makes you look dishonest or like you're paying no attention at all. quote:Is taking it away going to make someone's life better or just satisfy someone's sense of fairness? Again, crude appeals to emotion, portrayal of people 'taking this away' as just doing so in some self-satisfying way: it's not convincing, it's entirely predictable. And yes, if we use the money we tax from estates to promote the general welfare, then it'll make people's lives better. You seem to be pretending that tax money gets burned in a big pit, rather than spent on things that benefit people. quote:EDIT: Look at it this way: In the current system, people who think prop 13 is unfair can choose to sell their home instead of passing it on. People whio think it's fair can still benefit from it. The solutions being proposed by people in this thread all revolve around a certain group of people forcing eveyone else to conform to their idea of fairness without choice. This is just the ridiculous "If you think income tax should be higher you should pay it". It doesn't address the systemic nature of a problem, it pretends it's an individual moral choice. We're talking about how to structure the taxation of inheritance and how to deal with property taxes in a way that is sustainable and workable as a society, this isn't a morality play. Again, I can't tell if you just have no clue how absolutely bereft of substance these arguments are, or if you know it and you're being a sophist. You pivot neatly and ignore arguments made against you that it seems more and more likely that you do understand the inherent bankruptcy of your rhetoric, but it's hard to tell.
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May 30, 2014 15:24
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