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Congress Ready to Feed the Wealthy-Again |
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Wednesday, 17 May 2006 |
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Didn’t Congress just pass a $70 billion tax cut for the wealthy last week? And how about the fiscal year 2006 budget that makes drastic cuts to student loans and important programs to help working families stay out of poverty?
So how come Congress is now debating repeal of the estate tax? Did they think we’d forget that—thanks to President Bush and Congress—the rich already are getting fat at the trough? Supporters of repeal try to paint the estate tax as a “death tax” that will eat up even a $1,000 inheritance. But that’s not the case. The estate tax only applies to estates larger than $2 million ($4 million for a married couple). That adds up to just 0.27 percent (that’s right, about one-quarter of 1 percent) of all taxpayers—those who amassed multi-million dollar estates of at least $2 million. Financed by some of the nation’s richest families, the campaign to permanently repeal the estate tax could come to a vote in the Senate next month. The House already has voted to repeal it. The move to pass the estate tax exemption should not—but does—come as a shock, given Bush’s record of rewriting the tax code to put even more money in already wealthy pockets. Bush is set to sign the $70 billion tax cut for the wealthy bill that was passed last week by the House and Senate. Extending all of Bush’s first-term tax cuts and adjusting the alternative minimum tax to blunt its impact on the middle class would cost about $300 billion a year over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center. In addition, repealing the estate tax would cost $1 trillion over the first 10 years alone, according to government figures. Bush supplements his never-ending push for tax cuts with a constant attack on working family programs through spending cuts in health care, education, workplace safety, nutrition, child care and other programs. Recent polls show how out of step the estate tax opponents are with the general public. Only 23 percent of those who responded to a poll by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates said they favor a repeal of the estate tax. In fact, keeping the estate tax was considered the second-best way to reduce the budget deficit—which has mushroomed to $8.4 trillion since Bush took office with a budget surplus left by the Clinton administration. The poll was commissioned by the Coalition for America’s Priorities. The word is that if they can’t outright permanently repeal the estate tax, Bush and his congressional allies will go for some type of phony “reform” that will boost the estate tax exemption beyond the annual budgets of many of the nation’s small towns. |
