Sorry for starting the new thread, but this really has absolutely nothing to do with Bill O'Reilly's interview on Fresh Air the other day, and I didn't want to threadjack there. I do a little bit of volunteer work here at my local NPR station <blatant plug>I'll be doing the PSAs and breaks from 2-3 pm today on WOUB AM, @ www.woub.org </blatant plug>, and was idly listening to Fresh Air while working the board last week. What I heard was absolutely amazing - so incredible I didn't quite believe it at first - however commondreams.org (apologies to those on the right side of the aisle, who'll have to have their computers fumigated after hitting that site) has now confirmed that, to paraphrase Bushwick Bill and the Geto Boys, my mind wasn't playing tricks on me. This is unbelievable stuff. Listen here as Creepy Grover Nordquist Godwins an entire segment of Fresh Air by revealing the ideological link between estate taxation and the Holocaust(!) BTW the CommonDreams link is here.
Grover really sounds like Hollingsworth Hound from the lucky ducky comics http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14512 http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2002/12/19/boll/index.html?x
Which is still not 70% I couldn't find any poll numbers on the estate tax to confirm or refute Norquist's assertion.
Until someone can prove otherwise I would continue to refute anything coming from the mouth of a person who compares the estate tax with the Holocaust.
can we focus not on the 70% as an outrageous claim and instead notice the quote: the government comes after you die and figures out how much money you have -- "how much gold you have in your mouth " -- and takes half.
Why not take half. They already take 33% out of my paycheck and I'm not even dead yet. He acts like the gov't doesn't already know how much you make...if you pay taxes, they know. I'm not goingt to cry for someone because the gov't takes half of their Cayman account after their dead.
To people with bad teeth? If you have enough money to qualify for the estate tax are you really going to have gold caps or crowns?
It's in line with equating it with the Holocaust - the Nazis used to remove gold fillings from dead Jews.
You're making the false assumption that the government only takes cash. It's called an estate tax for a reason. It's a tax on the entire estate. And it's wildly unpopular, even with people who wouldn't benefit from its repeal.
The scariest thing he said, aside from his moral comparison, was early on when he said (and I paraphrase): You say we, including the government, I say they. Really, the notion of policymakers promoting this concept that government is somehow this foreign entity that people should be afraid of, instead of a body we all make up, is rather disturbing.
Except for the first one-point-something million. A vast vast majority of Americans will never ever ever pay anything in estate tax. That's because people like Grover Norquist have been remarkably effective in distorting the truth about the estate tax (though I understand they tend to prefer the term "death tax" since it sounds more nefarious).
When the government takes 33% of my pay, they're taking 33% of my ability to add to my estate. What's the difference? Some people invest in houses, others stash cash under their bed...it's all equity, gained through income. Do you have a link that backs the assumption that it's unpopular?...I don't think too many Americans even know what the estate tax is.
Right. And most people are aware of this, and still support it's repeal. I don't think death should be a trigger for the government to seize property in any case, regardless of how much money is involved. And my point was that Richth76 was assuming that it's only money in bank accounts, when it can be a farm or a business with assets numbering in the millions. I don't think the truth has been distorted. I think most people are well aware of the nuances of the "death tax". Granted, I don't like Grover's rhetoric, either.
Under current law, the exemption from estate tax is currently $1 million dollars, scheduled to rise to $3.5 million by 2000 and unlimited in 2010. If nothing happens between now and then, in 2011 it will revert to $1 million. This exemption is per person, meaning that a married couple are currently exempt for the first $2 million of their wealth. 98 of 100 people in America never pay any estate tax. In 1997 fewer than 43,000 families paid any estate tax.
Any frickin person with a new worth of over $2M should be able to find a decent estate lawyer to help him transfer most or all of his worth to his/her heirs pretty much tax free. And if they're too stupid to do that, they deserve to lose the whole frickin lot of it.
That's super and all, but I don't approve of something simply because it doesn't affect that many people. Hell, it doesn't even affect me. It's still wrong.