[UPDATE: Never mind.]
Over at the highly credible Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall writes that Sen. Maria Cantwell is in play on the estate tax repeal.
Okay, big estate tax repeal vote this morning in the senate. I hear Sens. Cantwell and Pryor are the key Dems in play. If you want to make your voice heard, now’s the time.
Cantwell in particular is probably the one your calls can help pull back from the dark side.
I suppose it’s a tough vote when you’re up for reelection and the publisher of your state’s biggest newspaper has a ten-foot woodie for estate tax repeal, but I hope Sen. Cantwell is savvy enough to realize that the Times is going to endorse McGavick regardless of how she votes… even on this issue.
FYI, estate tax repeal would cost the nation nearly $1 trillion during its first ten years, at a time when we are facing record budget deficits, and growing costs from the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism and the rebuilding of the Katrina-ravaged Gulf states.
And of course, all of the benefits of repeal go to the very wealthy in a nation where the wealthiest 1 percent own 33.4 percent of the wealth, more than the poorest 90 percent combined. For example, estate tax repeal would save Dick Cheney’s heirs between $13 million and $61 million. Donald Rumsfeld’s estate would save between $32 million and $101 million. The estate of retired Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond would save about $164 million. And of course the heirs of Sam Walton’s kids would save billions.
So call (206-220-6400, 888-648-7328, 202-224-3441 ) or email Sen. Cantwell right now, and tell her to do the right thing and vote against estate tax repeal.
UPDATE:
Guess I was slow on the trigger. The cloture vote failed, and the estate tax repeal is dead for now. Cantwell voted with the Dems, against cloture. So why not call or email thanking her for doing the right thing?
This tax has TOO LOW an exemption ceiling, and a waaaay too HIGH a rate. If they would fix that, it might not be such a bad thing. But they aren’t fixing it, and it takes too much out of the hides of regular people–who thought they never achieved super-rich status the likes of Teresa Kerry or Bill Gates—still who worked hard and saved in a disciplined manner their wholes and managed to accumulate a few million at the end. This happens more than you think. This law hurts them, too. Which is why they need to drastically reform the death tax. Since they are not, then get rid of it. We should not be penalizing everday people who spend their whole lives acting responsibly.
correction: thought=though
wholes: whole lives
The estate tax is good. Karl Marx
On CSPANII it says the permanent repeal of the Estate Tax was rejected 57-41 on a procedural vote, sixty were needed. I suppose that was a cloture vote.
Chafee and Voinavich vote no.
Baucus, Nelson & Nelson, and Lincoln voted yes.
The estate tax is good. Hillary Clinton
“All taxes are good.” Karl Marx and Hillary Clinton
Rockefeller and Schumer didn’t vote.
“We need more taxes, FOR THE CHILDREN”. Hillary Clinton
“Atlas has Shrugged.” JCH
Her office is saying the vote will be tomorrow. She’s still undecided and taking constituent input.
Gee Goldy, why not discuss what a liar Dean Logan is.
Didn’t I tell y’all Dean Logan is a LIAR!!
Thank you Keith…for doin’ yer job!
Where’s Logan? Stories change
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter
Where was elections chief Dean Logan on Monday when the Metropolitan King County Council debated a historic proposal to conduct elections by mail?
His staff at first said he was attending a statewide election administrators’ conference in Spokane.
Then they said he was working, somewhere, on something.
He was actually out of town on vacation, as Logan confirmed by e-mail Wednesday.
Some council members grumbled about his absence Monday when the assistants substituting for him were unable to answer questions raised by citizens and council members. An expected vote was delayed for two weeks in order to hear Logan’s responses to those questions.
If adopted by the County Council, the ordinance promoted by Logan and his boss, County Executive Ron Sims, will make King County the largest local jurisdiction in the country to conduct elections almost entirely by mail.
But the changing stories about the reasons for Logan’s absence appeared to undermine the credibility that he had rebuilt since the problem-plagued 2004 gubernatorial election.
Logan told the County Council by e-mail last Friday he couldn’t attend the Monday meeting, explaining that he would be at the Spokane elections conference “most of next week.” Election administrators said Monday that he was at the conference.
But on Tuesday, Jonathan Bechtle of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation pointed out that the conference didn’t begin until Tuesday, the day after the County Council meeting.
A spokeswoman for Sims, when asked where Logan was, responded on Tuesday and again on Wednesday morning that he was “working away from the office.” She offered no details on where he was or what work he was doing.
Later Wednesday, another Sims spokesman said Logan had taken “personal time” Monday, but had no details.
Logan e-mailed The Seattle Times on Wednesday that he was on a scheduled trip. When asked to elaborate about the trip, Logan responded that the questions were “offensive and irrelevant.”
Sims spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said Logan’s trip had been scheduled weeks earlier and that the County Council had postponed its vote on the mail-balloting proposal twice.
“There wasn’t any intent of his ducking being there or anything of that nature,” Kaushik said. “I think the assumption was the presentation [on mail voting] had been made at an earlier session and that Monday might be something more of a formality.”
The changing explanations of Logan’s absence upset several council members, who called the vote-by-mail proposal — which would take effect in 2007 — the most important restructuring of elections in county history.
“Maybe we should hold our next hearing in Kitsap County, where he lives, to make it easier for him to attend,” fumed Councilman Pete von Reichbauer, R-Federal Way.
“It’s pretty clear to me that when major election issues come up, if Dean Logan can be somewhere else he generally is,” said Reagan Dunn, R-Bellevue.
Dow Constantine, D-Seattle, said the details of Logan’s absence weren’t that important.
“I think that’s a bunch of right-wing blog nonsense,” he said. “I think what’s important is the answers he gives when he appears before the council.”
Those answers have taken on a new importance.
Until Wednesday, the vote-by-mail proposal seemed like a done deal because it was supported by all five members of the council’s Democratic majority.
But one of the prime sponsors of the ordinance, Seattle Democrat Bob Ferguson, said he was troubled not only by Logan’s absence (“a serious lapse in judgment”) but also by information presented Monday about staff vacancies Logan has been unable to fill in his office.
“I have to have confidence that the Elections Department has the resources and staff and the ability to make that change. Right now I’m not sure if I believe that’s the case,” Ferguson said.
OUCH!!
How can this KLOWN be trusted to run elections when he runs away from his responsibility to be there and listen to Public Comment and be available for the Council???
Who can trust him?
She needs to vote to repeal the death tax.
The people who get stuck paying it are NOT the ones who need to pay it. If the death tax was working as designed, Paris Hilton would be working! The Hiltons, the Rockafellers, the Kennedys, the Gates’, the Heinzes, etc… will continue to inherit billions without paying a dime in estate taxes….
Repealing the estate tax is nothing more or less than another piece of the overall GOP scheme to create a social hierarchy based on inheritance. Republicans are royalists at heart. Ultimately, they want to amend the constitution to authorize the government to bestow hereditary titles, replace elected Senators with hereditary Lords, and replace the president with a King. Republicans, who have always been Tories at heart, have never gotten over the 1776 Revolution, and have spent the last 230 years trying to reverse it.
13
Mac, you are a fucking idiot! (Or, perhaps, an unfucked idiot — maybe that’s your problem.) Why the hell do you think the mega-rich set up so many foundations, donate to medical research, pay for university buildigns, fund scholarships, etc.? Because inheritance taxes encourage them to do so. Repeal the inheritance tax, and charitable giving by the wealthy will drop like a rock off a cliff!
FYI — Bill Gates has publicly stated that he will leave 99% of his wealth to charity. His children will (and grandchildren, if any) no doubt will be very well off, and will never have to work, but they will NOT be billionaires.
Cynical, let’s send Dean Logan to Ohio and give Ken Blackwell a consulting contract to train Logan in the fine points of election administration! Yes, I realize Democrats already control state and county government, but why not make it permanent?
Bill Gates’ heirs won’t pay a dime in death taxes. Nor do the Gates’ pay their “fair” share of taxes to Washington State. This state needs an income tax. IT is completely disgusting for Seattle (home of many Gazillionaires) to be closing schools for lack of money.
The Gates foundation “withheld” how many millions in grants to the Seattle schools because the schools didn’t do what the foundation wanted them to??????
13
Mac — Cantwell doesn’t “need” to do anything. But you need to get laid.
Dean Logan is toast Rabbit.
All that needs to happen is for 1 Dem to have the guts to say enuf is enuf.
Roger,
They need to fix it or eliminate it. It needs to be fucking reasonable. Between the Feds and Washington State, a person with a few million will lose up to 85% of it, while the billionaires with high power tax attorney’s won’t pay a cent.
It isn’t noble for Gates to say he’s donating 99% of it to charity. How much of his charity is going abroad? He is actively campaigning to raise immigration numbers so that he can continue to fill up Microsoft with cheap labor from overseas, while he moans about America’s schools. Let him get off his ass and help fix the schools in America and he can start in Seattle!
Every year I pay Capital gains on money I don’t have, can’t spend, and have never seen. And Oh by the way, I don’t get to deduct those Capital losses either………..
Big Business has been sending jobs overseas for years to evade taxes. Enough of the craziness.
The US federal tax system is broke and the Washington State tax system is even worse.
@18
LOL…………
17
Mac, I agree with you on a state income tax, the leading proponent of which is none other than Bill Gates Sr.
However, virtually all advocates of tax reform support a revenue-neutral approach, so adoption of the income tax proposal probably would not increase the funds available for schools.
The Seattle School District has lost nearly half its enrollment over the last 35 years. I realize you’ve been away in the Army for much of that time, which is why I mention it. This fact makes closure of some Seattle schools necessary, reasonable, and inevitable. There’s no way you’re going to keep staffing and buildings intact when you lose half your students.
One way to save Goldy’s school would be to keep Seattle taxes in Seattle, instead of sending them over the mountains to subsidize schools in eastern Washington. But I’m not in favor of that. I think we should continue to subsidize the ingrates living in the red counties, based on the principle that no child’s education should suffer because his/her parents are whiny idiots.
Washington, like all other states, funds education on a per pupil basis, and there is plenty of room for improvement in the level of per pupil funding, as Washington ranks near the bottom by that measure (roughly 42nd). But increasing per pupil funds would require HIGHER TAXES, and you guys are against that. Specifically, if we fund our schools like other states do, we will all pay MUCH HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES.
It should be noted that Washington is the ONLY state that runs K-12 school funding through state government ledgers. In nearly all other states, schools are funded by local property taxes paid directly to school districts. In Washington, revenues from a variety of sources, including the state portion of property taxes, sales and excise tax revenues, timber sales from state-owned lands, lottery and liquor profits, etc., go into the education pot and are run through the books of the state Office of Public Instruction. This system also has the side effect of making our state government appear to be much bigger than it is, which plays into the hands of anti-government propagandists who falsely claim that state spending is bloated, wasteful, etc. Although the nominal state budget is roughly $15 billion a year, about 45% of that is K-12 funding, and our state government actually costs about $8 billion a year.
19
Fuck you, you fucking FREELOADER! If you want to advertise your on-line casino scams on this web site, pay the site operator for advertising space, you fucking FREELOADER! Otherwise, haul your ass out of here! We already have enough FREELOADING Republicans clogging up the comment threads, and we don’t need another FREELOADER posting here.
20
“Dean Logan is toast Rabbit. All that needs to happen is for 1 Dem to have the guts to say enuf is enuf.” Commentby Mr. Cynical— 6/8/06@ 10:08 am
Memo to Mr. Cynical: The election is over. Your candidate not only lost to Sims, he barely beat cigaret smoke. Sims won, Logan stays, and fuck you.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
“I think that’s [Dean Logan is toast] a bunch of right-wing blog nonsense,” he said. “I think what’s important is the answers he [Logan] gives when he appears before the council.”
–Dow Constantine
21
So your solution to undertaxing of billionaires with smart attorneys is to not tax millionaires at all? Give me a break! Typical wingnut logic — rich Republicans rip off lower and middle class taxpayers, then use that as an excuse for more tax exemptions.
So, basically we’re trying to decide whether the obscene debt being piled up by the present administration is to be paid off by the grandchildren of the rich, or the grandchildren of the poor?
Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.
– Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth
Dear Senator Cantwell:
Thank you for your vote this morning against cloture on repeal of the Estate Tax. I understand from news reports that the action means that action on the Estate Tax is off the table, for now.
I am puzzled, however, that news reports also indicated that your vote was “in play”. Your office said that you were “unsure” about the tax. I am certain that repeal of the Estate Tax is a very bad idea.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that full repeal of the Estate Tax would mean the loss of a trillion dollars in revenue over ten years. Even the Kyl “compromise” would lose $800 billion over the same period. In either case, the results are too costly in a time of high deficits and benefits a group of taxpayers who have enjoyed entirely too much Congressional largesse from previous tax cuts.
In 2005, the net value of an individual’s estate must exceed the basic exemption of $2 million. Couples can exempt $4 million. This exemption level will gradually rise to $3.5 million for an individual ($7 million for a couple) by 2009. Small businesses and farms have long enjoyed additional protections.
In 2006, the wealthiest 0.27% of Americans are the only ones who pay estate taxes. In 2001, over half of all estate taxes were paid by 3,502 people with estates larger than $5 million — representing the top 0.14% of all Americans.
Let us stop pampering billionaires and turn our attention to ending wars so that universal health care can benefit an overwhelmingly larger portion of the citizenry who need it far more.
Sincerely,
JCH (aka John Craig Herman) @ various:
How’s your plan of eliminating taxes and funding government with debt working out for your investments?
(N.B., as of 15 minutes ago, the stock market was down another 130 points today on inflation and interest rate fears. But every wingnut knows, inflation and interest are the acts of a vengeful God angry over America’s moral decline, and have nothing to do with Bush’s deficit spending.)
Why in hell should heirs who never lifted a finger or took a risk get a trainload of income tax-free when people who work hard for 1/10,000th as much money pay 15% to 35% of their income to the government?
There’s no such thing as a “death tax.” We don’t tax dead people, and the use of that label by reactionaries who want to create a society of hereditary privilege is an absolute lie. Estate taxes are paid by heirs, not by the deceased. It’s a tax on transfer of wealth, and it’s levied at far lower rates than taxes on earned income. Inherited wealth is absolutely unearned. The heir did NOTHING for the money, except to be born lucky. It is the most unearned and undeserved kind of wealth that exists, and the notion that inherited multi-million-dollar fortunes (the only inheritances that are taxed) should go completely untaxed while even minimum wage workers pay taxes is IMMORAL and OBSCENE.
About that income tax.
We’ll end up like the east coast:
City, State AND Federal Income Tax as well as sales tax.
Yeah, Y’all say it ain’t so…..today.
Seatbeats weren’t gonna be a primary violation either.
“Sure, I’ll blow you for $25, but if you want me to dress up in my sailor suit and “be in the Navy” it is $35.” [JCH]
17. Gates pays his share in taxes and helps Washington more than you would ever know.
He is a great guy, a hard worker, a billionare that gives, and from what I understand, a Democrat.
We are lucky to have Gates. The Gates Foundation ROCKS.
Despite a blizzard of negative press coverage, Ann Coulter’s new book “Godless: The Church of Liberalism” has surged all the way to No. 1 on Amazon.com’s list of bestsellers — just two days after its official publication. [hehe] JCH
30, RR, Cut “guvment” spending by 25%. Take all Iraqi oil tp pay for 100% of the war. Take Mexican oil to pay for 100% of illegals [education, welfare, food stamps, crime, prison, law enforcement]. Fuck Fox. Just take their oil.
“ Americans favor repealing the death tax not because they think it will help them directly. They’re more principled than that. Two-thirds of the public wants to repeal it because they think taxing a lifetime of thrift due to the accident of death is unfair, and even immoral. They also understand that the really rich won’t pay the tax anyway because they hire lawyers to avoid it. “
“ For proof that they’re right, they need only watch the current debate. The superrich or their kin–such as Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett–are some of the loudest voices opposing repeal. Yet they are able to shelter their own vast wealth by creating foundations or via other crafty estate planning. Edward McCaffery, an estate tax expert at USC Law School, argues that “if breaking up large concentrations of wealth is the intention of the death tax, then it is a miserable failure.” “
“ Do the Kennedys or Rockefellers look any poorer from the existence of a tax first created in 1917? The real people who pay the levy are the thrifty middle class and entrepreneurs who’ve built up a modest nest egg or business and are hit by a 46% tax rate when they die. Americans want family businesses, ranches, farms and other assets to be passed from one generation to the next. Yet the U.S. has one of the highest death tax rates in the world. “
Find the source/citation of that wonderful quote yourselves… I don’t give welfare to lazy, liberal bloggers.
@37 Unsourced wingnut BULLSHIt. Two years ago the Farm Bureau could not supply the name of ONE family farm lost due to Inheritance Tax. The Inheritance Tax stands. Now starts the wingnut campaign of LIES for their next failure.
You know, it’s really been a bad week to be a liberal…
** The “bellweather” election trumpetting “corruption” didn’t quite work out for the d’RATS in their bluest of blue states…
** Zarqawi is dead, dead, dead… which caused the price of oil to fall…
** A memo dated September 15, 2002, from the General Relations group from one of Saddam’s military/intelligence organizations, describes in detail where the chemicals were hidden from UN inspectors tells us chemical weapons of mass destruction were indeed buried in Fallujah:
In the Name of God The Most Compassionate The Most Merciful The Republic of Iraq The Presidency of the Republic Saddam Feedayeens Secretariat The Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens 2002/9
The Respected Supervisor of Saddam Feedayeens
Subject: Information
Salute and regards Sir
We received information that state the following:
1. A team from the Military Industrialization Commission when Hussein Kamel Hussein was conducting his responsibilities did bury a large container said that it contains a Chemical Material in the village (Al Subbayhat) part of the district of Karma in Fallujah in a quarry region that was used by SamSung Korean company and close to the homes of some citizens.
2. The container was buried using a fleet of concrete mixers.
3. Before the departure of the international inspectors in 1998 a United Nations helicopter flew over the region for two hours.
4. A large number of the region residents know about this container from the large number of machines used to hide it then.
5. It was noticed a non ordinary smell in the region.
6. No official visited the burial site through out the years which give the impression that it is not currently known by the Military Industrialization Commission.
7. Positions for the air defense were digged in the region that surrounds the quarry place without them knowing anything about the container. Also next to it are important headquarters like (Saddam factories-The warehouses of the Commerce ministry- Headquarters of Mujaheeden Khlaq).
Please your Excellency review and order what is appropriate Sir… With regards
Signature
General
Moohsen Abdel Karim Mahmood
General Relations
15/9/2002
** Air America in Atlanta is dead, dead, dead…. well actually with only 3 million listeners/week and a consistently negative cash flow, they’re pretty much dead nationwide – Atlanta just buried the corpse.
** The dipsy Chicks can’t give away tickets for their Hate America tour.
** Paramount has kicked Al off the eco-mothership because he’s an Inconvenient Liability.
** Ann Coulter is #1 on Amazon and will be in Publishers Weekly’s next edition…
37.
Bullshit detected!
Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates conducted 910 telephone interviews of registered voters: Margin of error is +/- 3.25%. The poll was conducted February 26, 2006.
Initially 33% said leave the estate tax as is, 24% said reform it, and 23% repeal it. 20% were undecided. Then they were told that it is collected on the total value of a person’s assets upon death, if their estate is large enough to be subject to the tax; that a couple pays if the value is larger than $4million; and that less than 1% of Americans currently have to pay the estate tax. After getting more information, 43% say leave it as is, 22% say reform, and 29% say repeal it. 7% were still undecided.
So 57%, at a minimum are for it, 75% when they know what the hell it is.
65% when they know what it is.
Despite a blizzard of negative press coverage, Ann Coulter’s new book “Godless: The Church of Liberalism” has surged all the way to No. 1 on Amazon.com’s list of bestsellers – just two days after its official publication. [hehe] JCH
“There’s no such thing as bad press, that’s the reality,”
–Tim Eyman
So Roger, you are saying that people should arrange to give away all their money to charity so the government won’t get it? Isn’t the purpose of the Death TAx to give GOVERNMENT that money? Which is usually what happens. I really don’t think that whenever this tax was created that they meant to catch the guys who accumulated 2-million or so over an entire lifetime. Seems it was created to nail the Buffets and Kerrys and Gates’ of the world–the billionaire types. But all those waaay littler guys that will never see anything like that kind of money get hit, too. They should not be targeted in the same category as the billionaires; yet they are. It’s wrong.
Here’s a funny story about I-920.
My mother, not the most politically engaged of people, found a petition for I-920 folded in the copy of her free local newspaper that she picked up from the grocery store. I’ve spent the last 20 minutes explaining to her that, despite the petition’s claims to the contrary, supporting the estate tax does not make one a communist, that only families with assets worth more than $2 million will be affected, and that the money raised actually goes to public schools.
On the petition, Patty Murray is quoted in opposition to the estate tax. A google search, however, revealed that the quote was lifted from a press release in which Patty Murray explained why she didn’t vote to repeal the estate tax. Small details, small details….
Another crushing blow to the cowardly lions on the right!