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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (127710)	2/17/2001 3:37:05 PM
From: ecommerceman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Jeff Roberts--Ah, it's fun to see these conservative myths on parade. Neil Harl, the best known agricultural economist in the country (Iowa State University), has said that in 30 years in his field he has YET to see a single family farm sold because of the estate tax. Mega rich folks can use trusts to avoid some of the estate tax, true enough--but that's simply an argument for closing loopholes, not for eliminating the damn thing. But you're dead wrong when you say that a mega-rich person can avoid ALL of the estate tax--they can't. The sad thing is what has happened to the Republican Party--here's a little known fact: the estate tax was strongly supported by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who saw that America was becoming split in two, and that a REAL danger was that a large amount of wealth would be in the hands of heirs who had done nothing in the world other than won the genetic lottery. He wanted America to be a dynamic country, a meritocracy as opposed to an aristocracy, and thus his strong support for the estate tax.... _____________________________ The other thing missed in all of the conversation about the death tax is that these mega rich folks use trusts and all kinds of cute ways to shield their estates. It's the middle income pond scum that has accumulated some wealth in their homes and 401k's that get hammered. It's always enjoyable to see a small business or family farm sold just to pay the government off.