If you thought the "estate tax" was off the table, think again

[NewJeffCT]

See this LTTE from Arizona Sen. John Kyl about an op-ed that appeared in the Hartford Courant in Connecticut!!

Time To Ax `Death Tax'

It was disappointing to read the Other Opinion article by Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins juxtaposing "death tax" reform with Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq .

Although politically clever, their argument for keeping the death tax is specious. Tax policy is either fair or it's not, and if anything, the needs of people in the Gulf region - especially small businesses - would be helped by tax relief, not hurt.

Gates' and Collins' transparent appeal to class envy is as unattractive as it is generally ineffective. Even a solid majority of Americans who supported John Kerry for president intuitively grasp, whether or not they are personally affected, that it is simply unfair for the government to take half of a person's assets at death.

For this reason, the Senate has long supported repealing the death tax permanently, following the lead of countries such as Russia and Sweden. We have been thwarted only by the supermajority required to overcome a filibuster. By contrast, Gates and Collins would limit the death tax exemption to $5 million and tax the remainder at a confiscatory 45 percent, creating a powerful disincentive for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses beyond that size. The "carve-out provisions for the transfer of closely held family businesses" they obliquely refer to have been tried before, and were repealed because of the impossibility of fairly determining who qualified and who didn't.

....
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-lets0921.artsep21,0,4748797.story?coll=hc-headlines-letters

[oneighty]

1. The real death tax

is taking ALL of a poor man's money while keeping him alive until his money runs out.

180

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Not to forget the 1900 person Iraq Bush War death tax.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. WTF? How can cutting the ESTATE TAX help people who have NO ESTATE?

:WTF:

[NewJeffCT]

9. Trickle down, baby

If you give the billionaires their breaks, they might spend a little bit of it on the economy is the theory... which flies in the face of all legitimate economic theory.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Yeah, I love that.

My favorite is asking anyone who brings it up to point out any point in our history when trickle down has actually worked.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Buh-bye "death tax", hello "birth tax"

The Bush Birth Tax
Today's Birth Tax:
$122,197
President Bush inherited a responsible, bipartisan fiscal policy and projections of a $5.6 trillion long-term budget surplus. But under President Bush, the national debt has exploded to more than $7.4 trillion ($7,400,000,000,000), due in large part to the President's tax policies. For example, the Bush tax policies accounted for about half of the $412 billion recordbreaking 2004 federal budget deficit.

This irresponsible fiscal policy imposes on every baby born in America a "Birth Tax" of more than $100,000. And if the President accumulates debt as quickly during his second term as during his first, that number will keep growing. This page provides a current estimate of the Bush Birth Tax imposed on a child born today.



http://www.house.gov/sherrodbrown/issuestaxbirthtax.htm

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Powerful concept; push the meme. Make Levees, Not War!

Being born-again doesn't give you twice as many rights, but maybe it should obligate you to twice as much birth tax if you use it as a political wedge or justification!

A war doesn't produce a machine tool or power a computer.

A levee protects people who would use the machine tool or computer to produce wealth to pass on to their children, even if it is estate taxed. It all makes for more income and wealth to fund better levees, etc.

A billion dollars worth of levee improvement and wetland restoration in New Orleans would have saved $200 billion in government expenditures. Even a Republican can do that math.

Make Levees, Not War!

[sadiesworld]

4. Sure.

Someone is going to stop "growing their business" at $5M b/c when they're dead and gone the feds get a larger cut?! What crap.

BTW, I guess they couldn't find their Katrina-estate-tax-sob-story.

[KharmaTrain]

5. The Clock Is Running

Repugnicans are looking over their shoulders and seeing lots of angry folks. For them, the way to keep the hordes at bay is to "lower taxes" or make some sort of noise. Doesn't matter if the economy really can't handle it or the defecits their reckless follies create...hell, let the middle class pay for it.

The estate tax is regressive in the concept that the money that is passed along has already had taxes paid...but that's also a big lie. It assumes that dad's $1 million stays at one million...it doesn't...it turns into 3 or 10 or 50 million and usually at very low rates. So there goes that lie.

To a limited degree I saw how the estate tax was a problem...but it almost always involved contested wills or tax liens or other probate problems. The current law allows for almost 2 million to be passed on to each dependent tax free. Now if that's not enough, what the hell is?

The game here is the Repugnicans are smelling bad days ahead and there's gonna be a sense of urgency for them to try to put in stone things they're playing with now. One is turning the tax cuts, that are supposed to return to 2001 levels in 2010, into stone, repealing the "death tax", reducing capital gains further and throw it all into the defecit that's sure to blow up on a subsequent Democratic administration. This is the blueprint this corrupt party used to mess up a lot of states...now they're doing it to the federal.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. Don't forget that other angry group of Republicans...

You know, the kind that are pissed that Roberts isn't "conservative" enough for them... the kind that are wondering why we still have abortion legal after 5 years of Bush and a Republican majority... the kind that are still fuming that they didn't do enough to save Terri Schiavo...

The greedmongers aren't the only ones unhappy in the GOP camp. It's going to be quite a nice little blood bath come primary season. :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[MN ChimpH8R]

6. It's the Paris Hilton Trust Protection Act

not repeal of the "death tax." Disgusting Repukes.

[NewJeffCT]

12. The thing that got me

Was that Kyl felt it was important enough to respond to an op-ed piece in the Hartford Courant - nearly 3,000 miles away from his constituents in Arizona!!!!

[AzDar]

7. They just don't GET it, do they? Keep pushing this fiscal lunacy, Kyl..

Hopefully it will be used to beat you over the head during next year's elections. Here in AZ, we finally have a candidate (the former Chair of AZ's Democratic Party; he was instrumental in getting the very competent Janet Napolitano (D!) elected )who is going to give you a REAL run for your money...sooo keep it up, Dumbass!

[NewJeffCT]

10. Is Kyl up in '06?

This would be a good issue... class warfare on the poor & middle class by the rich.

[AzDar]

13. He is. Jim Pederson has a real chance of winning, I think. He's

a conservative Dem, which makes him an excellent candidate here in
AZ!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. "powerful disincentive" Ha!

Sen. Kyl says "Gates and Collins would limit the death tax exemption to $5 million and tax the remainder at a confiscatory 45 percent, creating a powerful disincentive for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses beyond that size".

This is just plain nonsense. Anybody who has a growing business is not going to stop at a $5 million point. They will keep growing it! Once you get to a couple million, your basic needs and desires for you and your family are taken care of, i.e. food, housing, transportation, medical care. Growing beyong a couple million is as much for the game and the potential of $20 million as it is for an extra jet ski or a bigger pool. It becomes a numbers game, keeping score.

[stickdog]

17. The only argument for repealing estate tax is "all taxes are bad."

I've yet to hear a single coherent argument advanced that explains why taxing EARNED income is preferable to taxing huge unearned generational transfers of wealth.