Rep. Dave Reichert, shilling for the top 0.15 percent!
US Representative Dave Reichert (R-WA8) is widely rumored to be considering a run for governor in 2016. And what better way to prepare for a campaign than to suck up to Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen by repeating his editorial board’s shameless anti-estate tax lies?
In my home state there are numerous examples of the harmful impact of the death tax. In Seattle, permanent relief from the death tax is critical for family-owned businesses like the Seattle Times Company, which is a fourth and fifth-generation family business. And, in my own District, in Issaquah, Washington, last year, a family had to make the difficult choice to sell their farm which had been family run for over 120 years. That is a devastating decision to have to make, and they are not alone in making it.
That was from Reichert’s opening remarks at a March 18 congressional hearing on “The Burden of the Estate Tax on Family Businesses and Farms,” and it is of course a total fucking lie. As I painstakingly documented last August, there is absolutely no way the McBride family was forced to sell the family farm in order to pay either the state or federal estate tax, because 1) Ralph McBride’s property was too small to be subject to either the state or federal estate tax, 2) working farms are entirely exempt from Washington’s estate tax, and 3) the McBride property was not a working farm!
The story is simply not true. In fact, there is zero evidence of a family ever being forced to sell the farm in order to pay off the estate tax, anywhere ever. And yet there goes Reichert, faithfully reading this bullshit into the congressional record.
And this is what makes the Seattle Times’ shameful anti-estate tax lies so pernicious: they have knowingly provided the anecdotal foundation upon which future anti-estate tax lies will be built, all in the service of exacerbating our crisis of grotesque wealth inequality by a repealing a tax that 99.85 percent of estates will never pay.
“US Representative Dave Reichert (R-WA8) is widely rumored to be considering a run for governor in 2016.”
Good! I’ll take a freebie. So will my party.
@ 1 RR
Hooboy, that’d be a fun one to watch. Isn’t there some question as to his health? It seems like there was a bit of rumor that he’d had a rather serious stroke or something a while back.
I prefer a Humphrey/musky ticket myself.
I’ll agree to repeal the estate tax in exchange for eliminating the basis stepup that heirs get and taxing inheritances as income of the heirs.
Dave Reichert’s campaign ad from last election only talked about his record as King County Sheriff. Not a word about his record in Congress. Why? He was basically John Boehner’s lap dog nothing more.
I think Reichert’s Congressional accomplishments or lack thereof should be the issue of whichever office he seeks next.
It seems Seattle University doesn’t like unions, either.
“Speaking of Social Justice: One question for the overlords at Seattle University, wielding every legal trick in the book — including, now, claiming a ridiculous religious exemption — to block the counting of long-ago-cast ballots for union representation of underpaid adjunct faculty: What Would Jesus Do?
“Seriously, Brothers: The Jesuit university’s ham-fisted attempt to thwart bargaining by half its faculty — part of what the school characterizes, in court filings, as its chosen way of ‘carrying out its religious mission’ — is particularly ironic, given the Jesuit tradition of social justice. Or perhaps they’re suggesting that faculty, like St. Ignatius, take a vow of poverty and live in caves?”
http://www.seattletimes.com/se.....tz-strong/
Thanks, Seattle Times, for letting us know!
“I’ll agree to repeal the estate tax in exchange for eliminating the basis stepup that heirs get and taxing inheritances as income of the heirs.”
Sounds like a good idea. It certainly beats what we have now.
continued:
It would be a dramatic benefit for the life insurance industry, too, as life insurance policies could be used to provide liquidity for the heirs. Plus, just taxing the step-up in basis provides an opportunity for clever heirs to carefully plan things since the whole process would be been simplified.
Good grief! I’m actually in agreement with Roger over something!
Republicans ran the smart guy last time. That didn’t work. Might as well field the stupid one. Works in Texas.
Oh…for fuck’s sake. What a pandering jackass.
And this is what makes the Seattle Times’ shameful anti-estate tax lies so pernicious: they have knowingly provided the anecdotal foundation upon which future anti-estate tax lies will be built,
Pikers. The Washington Policy Center’s misreading of a single article in Seattle Magazine now has every wingnut in America believing Seattle is on the verge of starvation.
@1 what do you mean? Every governors election is a freebie for the Democrats in this state. Inslee will be re-elected, and in 2020 (assuming inslee doesn’t seek a third term as most governors don’t) another Democrat will succeed Inslee, in 2028 another Democrat will succeed the governor first elected in 2020, then in 2036 another Democrat will be elected to succeed the Democrat first elected in 2028 and so forth. Are you actually at all concerned about the governors race in this state? I’m literally laughing.