On the Estate Tax

Midtopia lays out the lunacy via Meyerson of WaPo:

Kyl's bill would plunge the government another trillion dollars into the red during the first decade (2011-2021) that it would be in effect

Of course clearer heads have a more sensible solution:

Under the $3.5 million exemption, the number of family-owned small businesses required to pay any taxes in the year 2000 would have been just 94, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office. The number of family farms that would have had to sell any assets to pay that tax would have been 13.

But this administration, and the faux fiscal conservatives have to protect their own:

an estate tax repeal would save the estate of Vice President Cheney between $13 million and $61 million, according to the publicly available data on his net worth. It would save the estate of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld between $32 million and $101 million. The estate of retired Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond would pocket a cozy $164 million. As for the late Sam Walton's kids, whose company already makes taxpayers foot the bill for the medical expenses of thousands of its employees, the cost to the government for not taxing their estates would run into the multiple billions.

Like Sean says, if we are going to 'spend' a trillion dollars, is giving it to a handful of MillionBillionaires really in the best interests of the budget.

Midtopia continues:

"Republicans" and "fiscally responsible" don't belong in the same sentence any more.

Read it all!

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