buffett on estate tax

[clarence swinney]

WARREN BUFFETT ON ESTATE TAX
In testimony before Congress he said:
“The Estate Tax was established in 1916 during the Gilded Age to put a brake on
anti-democratic concentrations of wealth and power. Dynastic wealth,
the enemy of meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline.
A progressive and meaningful state tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy. The use of the phrase “death tax” was intellectually dishonest and clever.
Orwellian and dead wrong.
The tax cuts of the last decade have enabled the super rich, including myself, to get richer.
Tax-law changes have benefited he super rich group, including me in a huge way.
During that time the average American went exactly nowhere on the economic scale.
He's been on a treadmill while the super rich have been on a spaceship.
Only 12,000 households in the U.S. Pay the tax and they are exclusively multimillionaires and billionaires. Leona Helmsley's dog, Trouble, is reportedly inheriting 12 million.
Without an estate tax Trouble could instead receive 22 million.
Keep the estate tax and it's 24 billion. There are 23 million households in the United States
with $20,000 or less of income. Let's give those 23 million households a $1000 annual credit. The cost would be less than getting rid of the tax on less than 12,000 estates.”

[juajen]

1. It's amazing how much clutter the conservatives put in the minds

of their supporters. This is truly a no brainer. I actually have friends that believe this tax will affect them. When I tell them the truth, they really don't believe me. Why are the ignorant cosseted by the right wing? The answer is obvious. They're like lemmings going over a cliff.

[Cary]

2. I'm an estate planning attorney and a lot of people don't believe me either.

The irony is that with the elimination of the stepped up basis these idiots are now going to pay taxes, when they didn't pay taxes under the estate tax. Also the links with the states have been broken and they're now going to pay state taxes.

When "conservatives" talk about "tax reform" they are really talking about shifting the tax burden from the rich to everyone else. If you pin them down on that they don't even deny it.

[3waygeek]

3. They've got to keep the clutter there...

so that the few brain cells they have aren't endangered by thought.

[clarence swinney]

4. Few Facts

1980=1% owned 20% Total Financial Wealth
1989=36% (80% Increase-- Reagan 60% tax Cut)
1980=10 Billionaires
1989=51 Billionaires

BUSH finished pushing us over the cliff

2008
1%=owned 43% Total Financial Wealth
10%=70%
20%=93%
(80%=7% or 120,000,000 workers Shafted Raped)
403 Billionaires

Wealth was added by 9000 Billion borrowed by three conservative presidents

No Reagan + Bush Tax Cuts and how much Debt today?

What did America Get?
Deeper in Debt and closer to cliff.
More inequality in Income-Wealth

Same policies pushed rome-spain-holland-england over the cliff

Those Three Conservatives created 99,000 net new jobs per month
Barely enough to cover new entries into work force

Carter + Clinton created 222,000 per month

Bush Cheney gave us Housing Tsunami and Financial Volcanic eruption.
Their 8 created 31,000 new jobs per month. Worst record since Hoover
Clinton left him a surplus plus 237,000 new jobs per month
Bush let 2,300,000 of our needed jobs to go China in his 8 years.
Their 8 doubled both federal budget and debt.(1800 to 3600)--(5700 to 11,900)*

225 years and end with 5700B of Debt and 8 more ended with 11,900B

*Do not let spin work. Fox--kudlow--cavuto etc-- will use Bush debt cut off as 1-1-09.
Bush last budget ran 10-1-08 to 9-30-09 they try to cut off 9 months of debt addition.
Obama first budget 10-1-09 to 9-30-10.

In Fairness, one must deduct from Bush the dollars in supplemental spending created in the last 9 months of his budget when he was not in office.
Obama supplementals for Stimulus and Auto Bailouts total a bit over 100B in actual dollars "spent"
from 1-21-09 to 9-30-09.
Therefore, that must be "deducted" from Bush total debt creation and "added" to Obama first year.

clarence swinney
olduglymeanhonest

google
clarence swinney
+ Wreckonomics
+ Rape Of Middle Class
+ Praise clinton

comments with facts numbers appreciated. do not read blarney blabber opinions

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burlington nc

[Yupster]

5. I paid the estate tax

My aunt died about 10 years ago.

She never married, always had a good job, took a good trip every year but was still a saver. Owned a home in New York City.

When she died she had between $ 1 and $ 2 million.

She paid about $ 2000,000 estate tax.

Really though she didn't pay it since she had passed.

I paid it, as well as my mother and father, sister and brother, the dog rescue center (for greyhounds) the World Wildlife Fund, the dog adoption center and her church.

We all got less money because of the tax.

I think that's one reason why the tax is unpopular even though a relatively few eststes get hit by the tax. Each estate may have 10-20 heirs who really are the ones who pay it and those heirs are often far from rich. Those heirs may know they wouldn't pay the tax, but they know Aunt Ethel will and they will inherit something from Aunt Ethel.

The tax is scheduled to come back taxing everything over $ 1 million on January 1 2011. That $ 1 million figure will hit a lot of regular people. Own a house, a bit of life insurance and a 401 k and $ 1 million isn't very much.

[txlibdem]

6. I'm a billionaire

I'm a billionaire (not really but work with me here).

Don't keep the estate tax on my ill-gotten gains. I know I'm only a billionaire because I was a better thief than anyone else. Sure, I caused wholesale misery day after day, lied, cheated, stole, tricked innocent little old ladies out of their life savings, defrauded my customers and suppliers alike to accumulate all that money Money MONEY. Sure, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the rich that the Rethugs put in benefited me greatly and jacked up the deficit. Sure, us rich SOBs didn't create a single job for Americans with all that free cash our employees (the congress) gave to us. Sure, our greed is insatiable and we will destroy the economy again and again in the pursuit of it. Sure, I would have no problem killing you with a soft plastic spoon if it would get more money for me (ps, that would be VERY painful and would take forever but you mean less to me than an ant). Sure, I saved a few thousand dollars by dumping toxic chemicals into the water supply instead of proper disposal -- and I don't even care that a million children will get cancer or have health problems because of it.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to lie to you again. I'm going to tell you that the estate tax will keep us rich fkers from creating jobs. Are you stupid enough to believe that after 8 years of tax cuts for the rich didn't create a single job? Quite the opposite, in fact, us rich fkers' greed actually caused the loss of over 8 million jobs just in the last two years. But I'll get the word out to our brown nosing toadies (the Republicans plus Ben Nelson) to just keep telling that lie over and over again. After all, it worked for Adolph Hitler. Hitler's Big Lie is alive and well in the Republican Party.