Posted on 06/09/2006 6:30:26 PM PDT by wjersey
So the estate tax cut went down in the Senate, to the cheers of class warriors everywhere. Congratulations to Democratic senators Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Ron Wyden, and Mark Pryor -- all of whom voted against death-tax repeal after voting in favor of it a few years ago. At last, they’ve come to their senses!
Our rich people don’t need another tax break. No, they need higher taxes. And they should be vilified, too. That’s right: America should attack rich people. In fact, we must abolish wealth, which is a tremendous drag on our economy. It’s high time that we made the rich poor.
As for all the xenophobes who want to deport the illegal immigrants who toil in this economy, may I respectfully suggest that their generals (i.e., Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Tom Tancredo) consider expanding their dragnet? Let’s deport rich people, too!
These rich people are bad for America. We don’t need their ingenuity, their entrepreneurship, or their capital investment. In the name of egalitarian socialism, the only thing we need from them is more tax dollars. We now tax their incomes as salary, corporate profits, dividends, capital gains, and at death. But we must do better.
Perhaps we can tax them when they contribute to charities, or the building of a new church or synagogue, or a symphony orchestra, or a small-town cultural center; or when they create another college; or when they finance private scholarships for inner-city educations.
But we can’t stop there. Let’s criminalize the entire class of successful American entrepreneurs. Let’s haul out the distributional tables from the Joint Tax Committee and the Congressional Budget Office and target all upper-end earners for special wealth taxes.
Maybe we can even impose jail sentences on rich people. No more interest income at all, just like the radical fundamentalist Muslims do it!
Here’s a thought: Let’s publish the names of all rich people in the newspapers and on the blog sites. Even better, when fat cats venture out in public, let’s swarm them like those animal-rights advocates who throw paint on women wearing mink coats.
Simply, we must strive to make America more like France and Germany -- those great income-leveling, income-redistribution states. But it’s gonna take some work. When I last checked the international tax tables, I found that the U.S. has the third highest estate-tax rate out of 50 countries. We should be ashamed. Only third? We tax estates at a 46 percent marginal rate, but Japan is the best at 70 percent, followed by South Korea at 50 percent. We are pikers. How can we dare let Japan be ahead of us on taxing rich people?
The fact that 24 countries have a zero estate-tax rate, including China, should not concern us. They don’t know what they’re doing. And we do. We don’t want to be competitive in the world economy. We’d prefer to hang out a sign reading: “Capitalists are unwelcome in the U.S.”
This whole idea of keeping more of what you earn and own is just plain stupid. In fact, this whole capitalistic notion is just one of those bizarre global trends that undoubtedly will be reversed as people come to their senses.
The Czech Republic, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico -- they’re obviously all nuts with their zero tax rates on estates. Did I say Mexico? That’s perfect. Instead of creating thousands of new businesses and millions of new jobs in America, our rich can do this for Mexico. If we deport them, that is. What a great idea!
Forget Sen. Jon Kyl’s fallback position of a 15 percent death-tax rate, after exempting the first $5 million of an estate. That would move us too close to Canada, Australia, and Argentina, which also have zero rates. It would also promote the foolish idea that there is a link between reward and work, and reward and risk.
The whacko ultra-right-wing idea that it must pay after-tax to work and invest is simply insane. Forget what the brilliant Arthur Laffer says. The best way to generate more saving and investment is to tax both more.
This may all sound wrong, but our soak-the-rich liberals are deep thinkers. They have their fingers on the pulse of the hundred-million-strong investor class. They know that the worldwide spread of free-market economics, which was launched by Reagan and Thatcher twenty-five years ago, which has raised global prosperity to record heights, and which has caused the phenomenal growth of the middle class in places like India, China, and Russia, is absolutely nuts.
After all, capital is the enemy of labor! Forget the obvious facts that you can’t create a new job without a business and that you can’t fund a new business without capital. That’s obviously wrong.
Once again, capital is the enemy. Rich people are evil. We have to put an end to all this capitalist, supply-side nonsense.
By the way, when is Karl Marx’s birthday? I have to stop writing now, so I can go look it up. Next May? Well, at least that will give me time to prepare a triumphant celebration for the greatest soak-the-rich advocate of all time.
Oh, and in the same sense, the millionaires did nothing for you: your argument collapses.
It can't be, the Kennedys' not paying their fair share.
Oh, they have some off shore trusts, you better believe it kiddo!
Oh, they have some off shore trusts, you better believe it kiddo!
That may well be true. But it's a policy that should be enforced by the owners of the already taxed wealth, not by the government.
The issue I have is simply the fundamental inequity of such a tax and the way it is imposed.
I don't think a legacy of insurmountable debt is a good thing either, but I'm not convinced that a tax which singles out wealthy citizens is the best way to go about reducing that debt. That minority of the wealthy already contributed the majority of the government's tax revenue throughout their lives.
Perhaps I don't feel as strongly about the debt issue as you do; I don't have any children -- at least not yet.
The paid me. I am not indebted to those that now pick my lettuce. Those millionaires that I once worked for now pay them. Just out of curiosity have you ever worked in a swamp in South Louisiana in the summer for minimum wage 12 hours a day for 8 days and then 4 days off? Have you ever worked on a rig in the North Sea and have it go down? Have you ever been in a foreign country and know without doubt if you say the wrong thing you are dead? Do you have any idea what it is like to hobble out in the light of winter morning and see the light of day and realize it is a gift to just be alive.
I accidentally pressed "Post" instead of "Preview." I meant I don't feel as strongly about using this method of paying down the debt.
Great post. Thanks Larry Kudlow.
That sounds liberal BS to me you just spouted, because you would suggest you should be able to run away from your bill and should leave it instead to your heirs.
Were is your supposed self reliance, responsibility and all that?
Why do you get the impression you get a pass on a debt from your generation?
I'm a conservative sonny, and here, please take my debt with you... Doesn't wash B8U
Do you hire someone to buy you a car.....how much do you pay them to do that? 30%? The LESS money the GOVERNMENT has the BETTER.....and taxing people on their assets at DEATH is contemptible.....we pay taxes all of our lives. AND, the newly wealthy, i.e. women and minorities are going to be hardest hit, too....so think about what you are advocating. The Dynasties already have theirs (Buffet, Kennedy, Rockefeller, Gates) and will pay LITTLE to nothing....paying off the debt will then AGAIN be the JOB of the MIDDLE CLASS....whatever that is...but, we all kinda know what it is....it's US!
The Dynasty families (Gates, Rockefeller, Kennedy, et al.)have all sorts of ways to "hide" their money from death taxes.....i.e. Foundations, where they they hire their family and friends to do work that furthers THEIR interests, and those are not necessarily, the interests of this nation.
LOL....I was about to ask him if he's a farmer....he seems such an expert!
It COSTS money to AVOID it....is the problem....and you need a treasure trove of attorneys and accountants to keep track of things.....in other words I believe it only becomes cost effective when you have millions.....more power to you WHEN YOU and your wife get there....THAT is the beauty of America.....you can STRIVE to be RICH (or we used to).....but, the penalty is getting very high if you are not quite RICH enough.
Amen! Having said that, the current tax 'system' needs to be scrapped, and replaced with something else. I'm too ignorant in tax law to make an informed suggestion on exactly what, but I like what I've heard of "The Fair Tax" so far.
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