Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Hey JaTo, old buddy, what's your understanding of Bush's desire to phase out the estate tax entirely? Isn't that something Bush is on record as wanting to do, as when he calls it the death tax? And wasn't that Bush desire to end the estate tax part of what the NYT was talking about? You claim you've been following this issue, and yet you say that this change only affects lower wage earners. Huh?



[sigh]

Dividend taxes were the ones that were planned to be scaled back and even eliminated for lower-income earners. Search on it...

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Ending the estate tax, which now ONLY hits estates in the $$$MILLIONS, implies the revenues lost would be made up elsewhere. How is that a victory for the lower 90% of us taxpayers? By trickle-down Reaganomics (aka "voodoo economics" per Bush's dad)?



To elaborate...

Talk to a generational farmer or a rancher about this, not some yuppy sipping mocachinos at a college campus. They aren't the highest of income earners by any stretch of the imagination, yet they often hold property and assets valuing into hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions in their later years (farming is VERY capital intensive and do you EVEN want to try going into land valuation arguments over the past 30-40 years just to get quickly sunk on that matter, too?), even though the relative return on that investment is often small in comparison (some are subsidized by the government due to prices being so soft on commodities)...

For a generational operation, this estate tax BS that's been going on has knocked the Hell out of those wanting to carry on the family tradition or business, unless they've done some serious estate planning.

I guess it takes someone other than a city-slicker to see this perspective and side of things, though. This nation doesn't entirely revolve around the concrete jungle.

Furthermore, since my family happens to operate a ranch/farm (more of a hobby for my father and grandfather), I feel fairly confident in throwing this back in your face since the inheritance issue is one that has been talked over ad nausem for years and is one that will seriously affect me under current tax laws.

Originally posted by PDXSVT:
D'ya wanna do a correction on your position before someone else calls BS on you calling BS on someone else?

Not a damn bit, since I used to live near to folks with Peach orchards that had holdings close to the million dollar mark and were lucky to come away with $60-80K a year in recent memory, half that if a freeze or disease nailed their crops (though their did exist government restitution if this happened in terms of some sort of crop insurance or "payout", but it didn't come close to covering the actual losses)...

There's a reason folks are selling the farmland and moving on: the land itself is more valuable than what is being grown on it...

Last edited by JaTo; 04/22/04 01:02 AM.
JaTo e-Tough Guy Missouri City, TX 99 Contour SVT #143/2760 00 Corvette Coupe