While you may love the death tax, I hope you are not dying to qualify.
Family farmers were on the way out anyway.
Maybe. Sometimes bigger is better, other times agility is better. Some family farmers are stuck in the mud, and others navigate the currents quite nimbly. To say that big corps will squash them is like saying that individual stock traders are doomed because of mutual funds. We both know that the proposition is ludicrous.
Maybe...because of their rather unique circumstance they should have been excluded from the tax from the getgo, but I think that allows ANY family run business (Hotels perhaps) to make the same argument.
Tax exclusions are not good policy. Asking government to pick winners is asking for unconscionable meddling. If I build a fortune and want to give it to charity, it is my right, and government will allow me to pass my whole estate tax free. If I choose my children as beneficiaries, then it is subject to the arbitrary and capricious death tax.
Yes, small business should get the same benefits as small farmers, so should Bill Gates. If he wants the government to get a share, he will designate them in his will.
Carter made Volker FED chief, but it was Reagan that allowed and even encouraged him to destroy small businesses with draconian interest rates. I was builing homes at the time, so don't tell me it was Carter than wrecked my livelihod at the time.
Carter ran against Ford touting the misery index. It was inflation plus unemployment. I think it was about 12% when he took over, by the time he left it seems like it was over 20%. Carter and Volker did great damage to the economy. It took the sensible policies of President Reagan a few years to settle the economy down into a growth cycle and undo the damage. As soon as he could, Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan to the Fed.
You can practice blame someone else revisionist history if you want. Carter and his Fed Chief, Volker were the problem, and President Reagan and his Fed Chief, Greenspan were the solution. |
