Democrats’ discord undermines Obama’s estate tax push
Divisions among Democrats are undermining President Barack Obama’s push to raise the U.S. estate tax on inherited wealth, just weeks before the arrival of the “fiscal cliff” could drive the present estate tax rate even higher than Obama proposes. …
Obama wants to raise the rate to 45 percent after a $3.5 million exemption. If the Bush rates are allowed to expire and Congress does nothing, the rate will shoot up next year to the pre-Bush levels of 55 percent after a $1 million exemption.
New York Senator Charles Schumer on Thursday said the Democrats’ proposal to avert the “fiscal cliff” involves $1 trillion in immediate deficit reduction that includes new revenue from raising the estate tax to the level proposed by Obama.
No less a power broker than Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said this week, however, that he wants to hold the estate tax steady at current rates.
Blowback
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Apparently democrats are the party of the rich.
Night Owl on December 1, 2012 at 8:38 AM
Gubmint: After our death panels finish you off with Obamacare, we’re gonna get your money too!
tommy71 on December 1, 2012 at 8:43 AM
Confirmed: The GOP stands for family farms, and the Democrats, led by Obama, seek to have them punished.
visions on December 1, 2012 at 8:44 AM
The estate tax is the best example of Progressive state goals conflicting with their outcomes to have ever existed.
The idea behind estate taxes, as the Progs will tell you, is to keep from getting a inherited moneyed class of people, the first step to an aristocracy. So we tax that family for an outrageous amount of their accumulated wealth to break up these blocks.
Humans, not wanting to see their life’s work taken by the government, find ways around this. Trusts and foundations being the best known examples.
These entities require very conservative investment and stewardship rules to maintain their status.
So instead of having a a shirt sleeves to shirt sleeve in three generations, as history has shown happens more often than not. We have multi-generational ‘investor class’ living off of the wealth of their forebearers.
Hmm, isn’t that what an estate tax is meant to short circuit?
The above failure of the estate tax is the core failure of it. An added “benefit” of it is to keep families economically scattered instead of building multi-generational businesses, which if successful enough and allowed to exist long enough would challenge the investor class’s wealth.
Nathan_OH on December 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM
The GOP needs to start using a word to rival the Dems’ use of investment. At every opportunity, whether speaking about the estate tax or the income tax, the GOP needs to repeat the word confiscatory. Over and over and over again. Beat it into the heads of onlookers. The Dems are doing nothing but trying to confiscate other people’s wealth, grinding it through a DC bureaucracy, and redistributing it in some convoluted fashion in the form of some subsidy.
Dems remind me of frat brothers who used to go to the ends of the earth to cheat off my exams in college. If they had put half as much effort into studying as they put into cheating, they’d have passed the class and learned the material to boot. Create an environment for those currently at the lower rungs to get out of that position. Most will eventually do so. But simply give them enough to keep them relatively quiet, and they’ll remain there all their lives.
BuckeyeSam on December 1, 2012 at 9:19 AM
Right idea, wrong word. Half the population will be asking “What is a confiscatory,” lol.
xblade on December 1, 2012 at 11:13 AM
Pure Evil.
55% over 1 million will gut family farms people have spent 30 years paying off, small family businesses like Marinas, restaurants, profitable land, ranches and on and on. Let’s say you own a small Marina and you paid it off and it is worth 2,000,000. You better be able to come up with $550,000 cash the moment Dad assumes room temperature or it is seized and auctioned off. Most people will refinance, meaning that you are now back in debt for half a million, making payments. As the money inflates, the assessed value continues to climb and 20 years later the son dies and the property is assessed at 3,000,000. Now you have to come up with 1,750,000 or your land is seized, plus any left over payments of the first gutting. People will use life insurance to try to hold the land they have acquired, destroying the reason Life insurance was purchased in the first place
My God, this is serfdom.
Bulletchaser on December 1, 2012 at 12:46 PM