What are you doing having lunch now? It's the middle of the evening ;)

I hate it too. But if it's not going to be completely abolished, pushing the level at which it takes effect up a lot higher is better than nothing.

Returning to the Clinton tax rates is hardly taxing the shit out of the rich.

wow - Obama is whomping McCain among Latinos - that's hurting McCain in the southwest

I can't wait to get out of New England.

Do you honestly think Captain Change is going to magically make it all better?

Every second tax is a double tax. Why do I pay a gas tax when I've already paid tax on that income?

mmmm Campbell Brown....yummy!

Helluva different economy then.

Is it going to just to revert to the old tax brackets, or is he actually going to increase it even more?

I see it as a easy tax because it escapes most Americans. A lot of more liberal-leaning countries have or are abolishing the death/estate taxes.

Not much different when he took office.

No argument with that.

re: Palin -- Bill Kristol talking about the exit polling data, showing McCain ran 4% better among those for whom Palin was an important factor versus those who said it was not important to their vote.

Basically she accomplished what she was intended to do, just not enough of it.

Taxed into oblivion? Someone paying taxes in the middle class, including you if that applies to you right now, is much closer to being taxed into oblivion when every dollar is more important to them than someone who makes/inherits over 250k.

TX for McCain per CNN - at least that gets McCain over 100 (while Obama is over 200)

I don't see Obama being able to do what he wants to do in terms of spending and taxes for his first term.

MS to McCain per CNN *shrug*

Actually, I was implying that it was good...good for you and your tax bracket. Bush loved rich people, and he treated them pretty darn well.

The problem is, however, that the wealthy are not the majority of citizens. I see the wealthy as having three choices. They can either try to use their money to rig an election (probably not going to happen), they can realize that being rich doesn't absolve them from will of the majority, no matter how hard they've worked, or they can leave, and see how just how good they've got it here.

The world doesn't call Americans "Capitalist Pigs" for nothing.

It's the only choice possible. We've just watched the embarrassing results of running a sorry ass RINO.

It wasn't too many pages back in the thread where someone described the core of the country as center-right. Maybe even more than that, we don't seem to have much liking for candy asses & half measures, which is exactly what McCain came across as.

How I understand it, and I may be wrong, is that since 2001, the level has gone up and the % tax has gone down. In 2010, there will be no death tax, but in 2011, it kicks back it. Everything in a person's estate over $1 million value will be taxed at 55%.

From what I remember seeing awhile back, Obama wants to make it so that the first $2.5 million of a person's estate is exempt, but I have not seen anything on the % that he wants to tax it.

Gonna slowly back away from all this, but, to respond...I don't suggest we shift the tax burden away from the rich to the lower end of the spectrum. I suggest we stop wasting metric fuckloads of money in just about all areas of the government, and keep everyone's taxes low. I don't want ANYONE to be paying for the seemingly endless bloat and nanny state bullshit that comes outta Washington.

Relevant if it foreshadows the outcome of the MS Senate race. I believe the current projections (assuming they held) would mean that the filibuster proof Senate majority would no longer be in play.

I think McCain = Bob Dole. He never really seemed like he wanted the election as much as his opponent and he seemed very much out of touch with most voters.

It will be interesting to see how McCain handles going back to the Senate. Given pretty much everyone who used to support him (most of the media, democrats in the senate, ...) almost completely turned on him in the election, I wonder if he will continue to be the "maverick" against the republicans he used to be.

but Jon, if the (R)'s go harder to the right while the (D)'s have (at least according to most commentators I've heard) started to rebuild the base of their party power on center-left moderate Democrats, how can the (R)'s hope to win anything??

I think he'll just go back to doing what he used to do, but he may be so annoyed or downright angry at how this election turned out, that he may retire at the end of his current term.

"You cannot be a viable national party if you are getting beat almost 60/40 in the suburbs and then getting beat 60/40 among Latino voters. It simply...you cannot sustain yourself as a viable national party." - John King, CNN

Now, it's not the first time I've heard this, but I'm not sure I've heard it put quite that bluntly on CNN (or other network media) before. What voters *do* the Republicans go after exactly? Assuming the Dems can avoid doing anything insanely stupid, they could have the White House for quite a while (as it was, things in 2000/2004 had to cut nearly perfectly for Bush, which they did...).

which i'd be quite okay with, as we discussed earlier, so that's cool.

I agree. I think the GOP needs to actually do what they stand for. No more spending like a drunken sailor.

LOL at Jack Murtha. Despite no network calling the election for him, Murtha has decided to give a victory speech to the media. He will probably win, but it's a crackup that he's telling everyone he won before the election is called.

By tying those allegedly "center" Dems to their evil left counterparts. They're be more than ample opportunities in the next two years to pin that tail on a number of donkeys (pun wholly intended & without particular malice).

One thing about the R's, they've got plenty of history of being the minority party. Hopefully they'll get back in touch with some of the don't give an inch spirit which led to their surge in the 80's.

OK, things making a little more sense now, looks like VA will go Obama and NC McCain.

I blame Joe The Plumber.

I think they'll always have traditional family values voters, possibly the far-reaches of the upper-middle-class, and the deep south. That just isn't enough of a base to overcome an absolute blunder of a Presidency.

The estate tax: McCain vs. Obama - Aug. 6, 2008

Looks like I was off. Obama proposes (or did back in August) at freezing the estate tax at its 2009 level. $3.5 million, 45% ($7million level for married couples).

McCain still favored a death tax, but at a 10% tax rate and $5m ($10m for married couples).

As predicted, even if Obama doesn't win Indiana, the amount of fight he put up there was indicative of the rest of the election. Indiana is turning out to be incredibly close.

Yes, yes. Not for himself, obviously. For the Republican party.

This would be ideal for me if this were true. I guess I'm not holding my breath though and we will wait and see what happens.. but if the Democrats lock up the senate and house with huge numbers plus Obama as president, I have a fear that they won't have any reason to stick to the center and we will keep the see-saw up where moderates such as myself get just as fed up with them after 4-6 years and lean back to vote Republican again.

Indiana and North Carolina are neck and neck now. Obama's pulled away in Virginia.

Gee, that'll be helpful :D

Best thing he can do is serve as an example of what not to do.

but there are very few "evil left" Dems - and the electorate that they're building the party on is center-left - if you scream at those people that they're evil they will turn away from you

Most conservatives didn't want McCain. He won the nomination on the backs of independents who were more apt to vote for Obama and the fact that Huckabee (social conservative) and Romney (fiscal conservative) kept splitting the conservative vote. I think if the republicans could have nominated a truer conservative (Huckabee or Romney), they would have had a better chance.

Still, this climate was murder for republicans. The economy, the dislike of Bush and a complete lack of passion on the right meant this election was a feit accompli. In 2012 (and even 2010), you will see a lot more interest from the right (and probably better candidates). I think the republicans are in much of the same situation they were in 1992 and I wouldn't be surprised to see 2010 swing things a bit back to the right like 1994 did. And I don't remember the republicans going to the middle in 1994 - in fact they went fairly heavily to the right.

yeahhhh wolf - throw it bck to my girl....yeahhhhhhh campbell brown !

Just under 50% of the voters disagree with you. The R's just have to knock some common sense back into a relative handful of those & order can be restored. But it can't be done by tip toeing around buddying up to the enemy. If they fail to provide a clear difference they'll get beat indefinitely.

Who knows what the next 4 years hold. Maybe the economic situation worsens, interest rates climb, tax rates aren't what they were made out to be. I don't think it is written in stone that the next 4 years will be better. We hope obviously, but who knows. If things don't go fantastic, going to be real hard to point a finger at the Republicans with a Democratic Congress and President and put the blame on them. To say that the Republican party isn't viable as a national party is a little quick on the trigger.

I can agree with this. I also think Obama will be rather conservative in his plans during his first term, not trying to go too far left in order to run in 2012.

oooh campbell babe...you dropped that one! you need a spanking girl!

I love that DT's comments in this thread are now almost entirely Brown-centric :D

I seem to remember a lot of people talking about the death of the Democratic Party just 4 years ago. I wouldn't go off and write the obit for the Republicans just yet.

Is it too late for a push by the Boston Tea Party? :)

dude - she's smokin tonight! and really there's not TOO much suspense left at this point (there is some, but not a massive amount).

is it good that i'm censoring myself? because I was going to say in that last segment how i'd love to throw her up onto the table with the holographic capital-building and do dirty things to her...