Wednesday Roundup

Some interesting bits today:

- Blogger Stuart Buck has Antonin Scalia's opinion of John Roberts:

For what it's worth: A few years ago, Justice Scalia said to a friend of mine that he and other Justices thought of John Roberts as far and away the best Supreme Court litigator in the country. I asked the friend why Justice Scalia said that, and (paraphrasing from my memory) the answer was something like this: "No matter how intense the questioning, Roberts is never flustered, and is always able to calmly answer any question whatsoever, while skillfully weaving in the substantive points that he wanted to make in the first place."

- Bruce Bartlett has a good piece on why we should get rid of the death tax.

The most recent poll was done by the New York Times in March of this year. It found that 76 percent of people say they oppose any tax on inherited assets. When people were given the option of having the tax apply only to estates of more than $3.5 million — far more than the average American could ever hope to have — 50 percent of people said they still favored complete abolition of the estate tax.

A key reason? The New York Times notwithstanding, is wealth mobility in the U.S.

One explanation for these poll results is that people know that wealth is not stagnant — today’s poor may be tomorrow’s rich and vice versa. This perception is backed up by empirical research. A 1992 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that between 1967 and 1977, 75 percent of people in the bottom 10 percent of wealth distribution had risen to a higher bracket, with 1.2 percent rising all the way to the top decile. Forty percent of those in the top decile fell to a lower one.

A 1998 study published by the Brookings Institution found similar results. Between 1984 and 1994, 60 percent of those in the bottom decile of wealth rose to a higher one, including 1.4 percent who went all the way to the top. Forty-seven percent of those in the top decile fell to a lower one.

People perceive this wealth mobility as well. In the New York Times poll previously cited, 80 percent of people said it was possible to start out poor in this country and become rich. And this is a percentage that has risen over time, contradicting those who claim that American society has become more stratified. In 1983, only 57 percent of people thought it was possible to become rich and 38 percent thought it was not.

Personally the argument I find most compelling: The death of a loved one should not be a taxable event.

- NYT reports that Dick Grasso is ready to settle the lawsuit against Spitzer. It's a shame, actually. As we noted here before, Spitzer's suit against Grasso is quite flimsy and the grandstanding Spitzer needs a black eye. [Spitzer, after having 29 charges thrown out against junior broker Theodore Sihpol is retrying the 4 counts where the jury 'deadlocked' - actually where jurors voted 11-1 to acquit.]