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Maybe They Are Starting to Get It Is it possible that the far left of the United States Senate is starting to get it? A careful listen to the class warfare currently raging on the floor of the senate over the estate inheritance tax, the death tax, shows some signs of hope. Is it possible they are starting to understand that most Americans would like to be rich? Even the ultra-liberal Barbara Boxer, in her own subtle way, has quite possibly seen a tiny pinpoint of light. At least if you listen to her rhetoric anyway. Because the debate with regard to the death tax on the floor isn’t about millionaires or even multi-millionaires paying the tax – it has shifted to bashing the billionaires! This is progress, however slight, for the extreme left. It’s the "super-rich" that are the targets on the floor of the Senate these days. Of course that means it’s not a great day to be Leona Helmsley or Donald Trump but who would go out and defend them anyway? It’s telling when Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has to use the richest man in the nation to clarify a point on opposing the Republican plan to eliminate the tax. It seems in the Senator’s world, if Mr. and Mrs. Bill Gates were to pass away, the government would lose $8.4 billion in revenue if the Republican plan to eliminate the death tax were in effect. Feingold even tried to tie his pet project, campaign finance reform, into the debate. It seems all those rich people who give money to politicians have forced this issue to the floor. He didn’t mention the multi-millions in contributions to Democrats from labor unions that almost universally oppose this legislation. Of course they still miss a significant point of any tax, this one in particular. Either it’s a bad tax or it’s not. If it’s an unfair tax for someone with an estate of $50,000 or $7 million, why isn’t it unfair for someone with a $20 million estate? That may be a little deep for liberals so we’ll leave that subject for another day. They still talk about cost to the government when the subject is cutting taxes as if the money belonged to the government in the first place. Maybe with a little more time they will learn that the money belongs to those who earn it, and the government should only take what is necessary to function. But don’t hold your breath. And they always have the laundry list of those things that government will provide if only the rich didn’t keep so much of their money. Just a partial list included drugs for seniors, saving social security for the youth, saving Medicare for the elderly, having money for ballets and symphonies (you know, the ones the poor people attend), raising the minimum wage, and, of course, childcare. At one point, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) conveniently remembered reading a newspaper story in San Francisco, the hometown of Sen. Boxer, that stated the cost of childcare in that city was $60,000 a year. Sen. Boxer was aghast. How could those greedy childcare providers soak families like that. Followed to its logical conclusion, they would tax rich people so they can provide subsidies to rich people to pay for their expensive childcare. Maybe the compassionate senators could just propose to cut the wages of those providing childcare. Senator Rod Grams, the Republican Senator from Minnesota, who is in what is considered the toughest reelection race in the nation, got it exactly right when he said the inheritance tax is "Anti-American, anti-family, and anti-job growth." Efforts to maintain it at its punishing levels is simply "greed on behalf of some politicians who want to control people even after their death."
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