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.
for your ping lists.
Something tells me that Larry's being facetious...
The people MOST affected by the DEATH Tax ARE those whose fortunes are EARNED....they are the NEW wealthy who don't have enough money to protect it in Foundations....instead it's in their businesses, houses, etc. The Kennedy's, Rockefellers, Gates, and Buffets won't be paying any (or at least hardly any) estate tax.....think about it. Same probably goes for the Hollywood rich....they hire accountants, etc. in order to hide their money for tax reasons. Educate yourself.....before you mouth off, okay?
The first job I had at 15 years old was given to me by a millionaire. The second job I had at 16 years old was given to me by a millionaire. As a matter of fact all the jobs I have ever had have been given to me by millionaires with the exception of my last job. It was given to me by a multi trillionaire, the United States Government. Rich people have been very good to me. Poor people have done nothing for me and they have done nothing for other poor people. Do not save the whales, save the millionaire he may save your a$$ when you need a job.
this shure blows it on bill gates.
LOL...I'm working with the Chair of the Committee to Abolish the Washington State Estate Tax right now....some lady called in the other day asking about the Estate Tax....she had an agenda...."Rich people should pay.ladedada"....I tried explaining how "rich" are those who provide jobs, have businesses, etc....but she was a one-note singer...so I suggested maybe she'd like to move to Russia....she hung up on me.
I agree, and as you get more and more heirs looking at smaller pieces of the pie, eventually enough of the heirs force a sale and the farm goes bye bye that way as well.
We can't force the family farm to stay together forever.
We can't stop heirs from wanting to cash out either.
They picked your lettuce, they mopped the toilets where you have been, they rang up your groceries, they waited on your tables... ayup they done nothin.
The rich and poor have this alike: they die the same death.
the biggest class warrior is Larry "open borders" Kudlow.
Anything that lowers the wages of the average American and puts money in HIS pocket wins his support.
Sorry Larry, we don't don't care that you have to pay an estate tax on your millions. Why not move to Mexico?
Can't even reserve it for when a going concern is liquidated for reasons other than taxes.
It is a lie that only people with estates worth $2 million are affected by the death tax. EVERYONE who gives a gift with a monatary value is affected. THAT is the primary value of the death tax to the government. It's another way to keep tabs on what the plebs are up to.
You are obviously ignorant of what the Estate Tax is and who REALLY pays it...
If you really feel that way, why not have the government take 100 percent of the estate? That would really help get that debt under control, and think of the creative ways the surplus could be wasted after it's paid off!
I don't know who here can call themselves conservatives if they are unwilling to pay that bill, or at least try to with money after their death when they wouldn't need it.
I can call myself a conservative -- I pay my debt every paycheck through withholding. As for my "need" of my money after death, I can probably think of a million uses better than letting the government waste it.
How many believe in responsibility here in paying their tab and how many believe they should run away from the bill like the liberal hearted slugs they are?
I'm sure most people reading and posting on Free Republic don't have an issue with paying their fair share, as long as it doesn't get thrown into a black hole of government waste.
I'd love to be free to spend my money as I see fit, not surrender a percentage to the government a hundred times a day through every financial transaction or phone call I make, or every time I drink a glass of water or flick a light switch.
That would be the perfect example of the kid's old man not having the smarts to have transfered title to a trust long ago.
Things left in your name are taxable, things not yours are separate.
There are things with a good estate lawyer long ago that they could have done to avoid the sale and tax IMO.
They can't make exception laws outright regarding farming in estate tax because then you would see all these false farms popping up to pass wealth.
If they were on the ball, I think they could have already been tweaking more money in their pocket by depreciating trees and so forth.
There are ways to avoid more taxes legally, but the owners of the farm can't be coy in not getting things done and then just die.
Right now there is a 2 million deduction that goes up several more million and ends after 2009, so the best planning for someone who won't put things in a trust would be to know when to have the good sense to die! :(
My friend I have done that also. I did it for minimum wage. I do not work for minimum wage any more. It was not lettuce but sugar cane, a drilling rig, and tug boats. All those jobs were given to me by millionaires and I was grateful to have them. I am now in the top bracket of income tax and am very glad those millionaires gave me those minimum wage jobs. I did those jobs for me not as a service to someone else. Hard work is okay even at minimum wage if you have the desire to succeed and prosper.
So you paid you?
Oh no, that's not what you said, the millionaires paid you.
But, even if so (it's possible to own a business and NOT be a millionaire) who paid the millionaires? If nobody paid the millionaires to channel the money from YOU to these poor menials for those things, you can rest assured the millionaires wouldn't donate their own funds, and you'd be without lettuce, clean toilets, waited tables, rung groceries (someone has to watch even the self checkout lanes). They're not stupid with money, that's how they are millionaires.
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