Since you asked, JVT, I'll confirm ALL your suspicions.
I'm a 14 year old gangsta that lives off the public teat of my momma's welfare checks. We get them under several falsified names. We use our food stamps to buy crack, but only for resale, 'cause I'm gonna be big business someday. I pay NO taxes 'cause my drug customers and my hos' customers all deal X-clue-sive-ly in cash, my man. And I'm also a card-carrying communist. I can read all the pictures in the comic books all by myself. My life ambition is to get richer, own 7 Bentleys (one for each day of the week), and assassinate Milton Friedman. After him, I'm going after that "invisible hand" dude I keep hearing about on the street corner. They're both tryin' to ruin my groove.
Now back to the estate tax. It was put in place decades ago. Does anyone here REALLY believe they have an argument for it or against it that has NOT already been made and adopted or shot down by Congress and the IRS Commissioner over the last bazillion years? Yeah, now that Bush has brought it up, it's a new issue for THIS generation. Go look at what prior generations argued on that same issue. Those prior generations have already argued it as well as you or I will. No, better. Yet, strangely, it's been passed on from them to us. What the hell were they thinking? Yeah, Eisenhower was a bleeding liberal socialist. Nixon didn't pull iteither, but as he did price controls, he was a borderline commie too.
To "get real" further, the estate tax does not really generate that much revenue. Making estates tax-exempt to $3 or $4 million will become "reasonable" for the benefit of the middle class in the near future if we are not there already. But to screech "End it now in its entirety!!" even for $10, $20 and $100 million estates is NOT revenue neutral, and to justify ending it by saying "there is waste in government and let's shrink big government" is actually changing the topic.
You want it gone. Fine. Do that in a revenue NEUTRAL manner that does not morph into increasing the lower and middle classes' tax burdens and maybe we're making progress. But don't tell me to junk it. Tell me what to replace it with.
Or else I'll hide outside the school your kids attend with boxcar loads of candy, gay porn, Che Guevara T-shirts and Kerry propaganda. That's how we recruit, dontcha know?
Am I jealous of the fat cats? No. I don't need to be Bill Gates money or even a $1 million lottery winner to be satisfied either. I enjoy my work, it's rarely boring, it pays OK and I'm doing good for the people I serve. Do I expect to retire someday? I hope my brain and my work allows me to not have to retire. I can't afford to. My dad and my granddad that lived that long both worked until they turned 80. I'm jealous of THEM.
I'm in my 50's, have a daughter on active duty (her politics are more liberal than mine) and a son in college. He's also working 28 hours a week. And I'm your worst nightmare: A family guy liberal who votes on everything, even on library levies, and who doesn't like seeing little guys pushed around by bullies, jerks, litigators and insurance companies. I don't play well with those who I perceive as not thinking thoroughly. I have issues with extremists on both ends of the spectrum, and dislike extremists posing as moderates.
Yes, I'm liberal. Very. So am I enough of a little punk to suit you? But I prefer this as a car site instead of one for people that seem to have only looked at one side of an issue. (News flash: I've voted for GOPers for high offices.) Again, if I have not answered your question to your satisfaction, then go hit the national archives. Your answer is there.
Please pardon my self indulgence on this post.
