Theodore Roosevelt supported the death tax

Chalk another one up for big government progressivism. I recently posted about progressive republicans and the 16th amendment, having learned during that research that this was the case: I did not know previously that TR supported the death tax. Here is what he said in 1906:

As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual-a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. Again, the national government must in some form exercise supervision over corporations engaged in interstate business-and all large corporations engaged in interstate business-whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with the far reaching evils of overcapitalization."

Perhaps we should propose an amendment which would strike out "We the People" and replace it "We the Government". This is insanely insulting, but it's typical for people who's minds have been infected and polluted by the ideologies of social justice.

I will have to give him this: TR was a masterful, masterful propagandist. His skill was that of omission. Note the things I bolded.

So who will determine which fortunes are "swollen" beyond health limits? Of course! You guessed it, commissars in bureaucracies! Big government will do it.

Who will supervise the supervisors? Nobody. Government controls you.

Who determines what a "healthy limit" is? What if you are just below that "healthy limit", will you be endlessly harassed by overzealous regulators? Well we can't allow you to amass too much, now can we?

It is interesting to note in what speech Theodore Roosevelt made these comments. "The Man with the Muck Rake" That's right! While TR was lauding his journalist friends who were pimping fake news across the country, he was currying favor with them with the sweet, sweet sound of death tax lullibies. Here, read the speech. Right before that paragraph that I quoted, here's what he said:

It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business. We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes ill won; between those gained as an incident to performing great services to the community as a whole and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the limits of mere law honesty. Of course, no amount of charity in spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct in making them.

You see, government should be in the business of determining the use of your fortunes.

Government should determine if your fortune was ill won.

Government knows best, not you.

Government, government, government. By leaving so many things open to government, this leads to the largest government the world has ever seen.

Theodore Roosevelt clearly believed that the most beautiful words in the English language were as follows:

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".

I'm quite convinced that most people don't actually read Theodore Roosevelt's own words or look at his actions directly, thus they don't really know just how big of a big government guy he truely was. Instead, a bunch of propagandist fake-historians have falsely portrayed him in ways that are unwarranted by the facts, thus the re-invention of him as a "conservative".

https://tinyurl.com/ybkh28xl