Senators Hunt for Wealthy Katrina Corpse to Support Estate Tax Repeal

Friends, brace yourself for this bit of inconceivable greedy cynicism.....Time magazine is reporting that some Republican Senators are "looking for a corpse to make a case" for repealing the federal estate tax. Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) are apparently looking for a wealthy casualty of Katrina as sympathetic evidence against the estate tax.....

As blogger Plaid Adder explains, "See, if they can just find one person who was killed by Katrina, and would be affected by the estate tax, they could capitalize on the outpouring of sympathy for the victims by telling them, 'Repeal the estate tax, or else his heirs will suffer! And then the hurricane wins!' "

Reports Time, "...On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions' legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their cause, which he left on Apolinsky's voice mail: '[Arizona Sen.] Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax. If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with.' "

But Sessions and Kyl have run into one tiny problem in their hunt for a wealthy Katrina corpse to flak for their cause of more tax breaks for multi-millionaires....."....they haven't yet found a Katrina victim who was wealthy enough to be affected by the estate tax. Because, as anyone could have told them, anyone in New Orleans who was rich enough to have to pay this thing was also rich enough to pay for his own evacuation," writes Plaid Adder.

Plaid Adder continues, "Also, as has been mentioned in a couple other stories, the big houses on the high ground have come through the flood relatively unscathed.....Gee, guys, it's kinda too bad that the rich are too well-protected to provide you with the prop you need. But that's kind of on account of their being rich, and all."

As I simplify for you at Pros & Cons of Repealing the Estate Tax, the federal estate tax is levied on possessions given to others by a person after their death. When Preisdent Bush took office in 2001, more than 98% of all estates left by deceased US taxpayers were already exempt from all taxes. Only the very richest estates were still subject to taxation.

In 2001, President Bush successfully won a record-setting 10-year, $1.35 trillion estate tax cut for those very rich estates. Now, the Bush Administration wants to permanently repeal the entire estate tax, via the legislation desperately pushed by Senators Sessions and Kyl.

US budget and trade deficits are soaring to history-making heights; the $300-billion Iraq War sputters along with Bush pledging to not withdraw; Hurricane Katrina will cost this country untold billions, largely due to federal unpreparedness; and since the Bush Administration took office, US education programs have been consistently underfunded and slashed while US educational achievements sink farther and farther down in relation to the international community. And this short-list of underfunded, failing segments of US society under the Bush Admministration is woefully incomplete.

And yet, the Bush Administration still greedily prioritizes repeal of the federal estate tax over these dire problems. Time reports that the federal estate tax generated $24.8 billion just in 2004.

Calling talk among Republican senators of proceeding with a plan to repeal the estate tax "mind-boggling," Senator Barack Obama, (D-IL), said yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation program that the country could not fight a war in Iraq, rebuild the Gulf region and deal with other domestic needs while cutting taxes for the wealthy.

After learning of this disgusting idea by Senator Sessions and Senator Kyl to use the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina as PR gimmick to press for more tax breaks for America's wealthiest citizens, I must heartily agree with blogger Plaid Adder when he suggests a slogan for these senators , "The Republican Party: There's NOTHING We Can't Exploit!
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Related articles -- Pros & Mainly Cons of Repealing the Federal Estate Tax
-- Bush Education Cuts Take from Poor, Disabled & Immigrant Students
-- Iraq & National Security Made Simple - Statistics to Sept 5, 2005
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