Progress Pond

Promoting Meritocracy by Restoring the Estate Tax

Cross-posted at Winning Progressive

The New York Times reports that the unnaturally orange John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who dreams of becoming Speaker of the House, suggested this morning that while his priority was to provide a tax cut to the richest 2% of Americans, he would reluctantly support President Obama’s plan to provide relief to only the other 98% of us who make less than $250,000 per year.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Boehner has already walked this comment back, issuing a statement suggesting that he was returning to the Republican position, which is that all Americans will only get a tax cut of approximately $6,000 on average if the richest 2% of Americans are given an extra $103,000 on average per year.

I’ve already explained why the Republican’s insistence on giving $103,000 more per year to the richest 2% makes no fiscal or economic sense.  But buried in the New York Times article was an even more insidious proposal from Mr. Boehner – to extend the current one-year moratorium on the estate tax.  

The estate tax is a tax on the transfer of wealth at one’s death.  This year, there is no estate tax, as George W. Bush gradually allowed rich families to inherit a higher percentage of their decedents’ estates, with the tax entirely eliminated in 2010.  Moving forward, President Obama wants to return the estate tax to its 2009 levels, which exempted the first $3.5 million of an estate from any taxes, and applied a 45% tax rate to any value above that $3.5 million.  Republicans like John Boehner, however, want to permanently eliminate the estate tax.

President Obama’s position is clearly the correct one for our country for a number of reasons:

Our country is faced with critical needs to restore basic government services, repair our infrastructure, reduce our long term deficit, and further boost our economy.  Each of these requires that government has adequate revenue to do its job well.  In the face of these needs, Republicans are proposing to provide even more resources to the wealthiest families in our country by eliminating the estate tax and giving an average of an extra $103,000 to the top 2% of Americans.  By contrast, President Obama is taking the common sense position of restoring an estate tax that touches only the top 0.3% of estates, opposing further tax relief to the wealthiest 2%, and providing a tax cut to folks making under $250,000 per year.  When it comes to taxes, it is clear that President Obama is on our side, and the Republicans are not.

Do you support restoring a tax on the richest 0.3% of estates in order to help reduce the budget deficit and provide basic government services?  If so, let folks in your community know by sending a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

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