April 13, 2005, Death-Obsessed House Strikes Again...
The House of Representatives continued its streak of brilliant legislation, following up on the unpopular, unconstitutional, and best of all, ineffective Terri Schiavo private legislation, by addressing the most burning and important issue in the nation: whether those standing to inherit over $5,000,000 should ever pay any taxes again. That's right: the People's House passed a bill to make estate tax repeal a permanent feature of the American landscape.
Of course, this being America and all, chances are, even though at this point less than 1% of the population even stands to be in a position anywhere near being involved with an estate likely to pay the estate tax... (only a few thousand people a year leave estates over $5,000,000) the measure will at least be popular, cause we loves our rich folks. Yessirree.
Well, yee ha. Last I looked, those air-craft carriers weren't refurbishing themselves... somebody's just got to pay for our government. And if we keep lifting "the burden" from our rich folks, it's probably going to be everybody else paying MORE in tax to subsidize them. And yet, the estate tax repeal is popular.
The House passes this repeal of the estate tax. The same House that stripped bankruptcy protection from millions of our most vulnerable and desperate citizens and refused to pass an interest cap of even an outrageously high 30%. You don't even know what to say, after a while.
Comments
I've yet to see a democrat have the guts to go on a cable-tv news network and say that we need an inheritance tax to finally tax money for the first time that eluded us from taxation through sweetheart deal tax shelters that are simply unavailable to ordinary folk.
Posted by Hugo at April 14, 2005 3:43 AM
...well, that settles it. I'm obviously going to have to put the ol' nose to the grindstone and get crackin' on earning that first 5 mil. There's obviously no future (and sure as hell no support from the Republican side) in being a middle class guy...
Posted by Jack K. at April 14, 2005 3:26 PM
They searched and searched through the annals of history, and concluded that people were a whole lot better off in 1905 than they were in, say, 1975. So began a concerted effort to return to the golden days of violent labor strikes, starving agricultural laborers, toxic pollution, child labor, black and brown lung, tuberculosis, increasing infant mortality, tainted meat, and flu epidemics. Money is so damned wasted on the middle class; we may lose a few kids to childhood diseases and hunger, but isn't it worth it to build the kind of 10,000 square foot summer houses that future generations can pay admission to admire? Who knows, this might mean that railroads become economically viable again.
Posted by mamayo at April 14, 2005 8:07 PM
Don'tcha know, we is all gonna win the Powerball someday for a hunnerd million bucks and then, by God, won't we be glad we supported this... :-0
Posted by Jeremiad Screamer at April 19, 2005 4:39 PM