Kill Ohio’s Death Tax!
Ohio’s Estate Tax Must come to an End
“Estate tax repeal should be a no-brainer: More family businesses and farms growing in size. More jobs. More tax revenues.” Dick Patten, president American Family Business Foundation.
For centuries, economists have pointed out the harmful economic effects of estate and inheritance taxes.
Excerpts from the book Rich States, Poor States (by Laffer, Moore, Williams, 2009) explain the harm:
“Many studies indicate that the death tax is so inefficient, so adverse to saving and capital investment, and so complicated, that the states and the federal government would actually recoup much if not all revenues lost from this tax with higher tax receipts resulting from long term economic growth.
“The estate tax causes distortions in household decision making about work effort, saving and investment (and the loss of economic efficiency) that are even greater in size than those from other taxes on income from capital.”
Hightower: Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit
How billionaires’ money took over Washington — and created the mobs who rant against reform.
by Jim Hightower
hat tip: Hightower Lowdown
March 19, 2010
Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television’s yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington’s 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.Yet the economic and political thievery continues, as the White House, Congress, both parties, the courts, the media, much of academia, and other national institutions that shape our public policies reflexively shy away from any structural change. Instead, the first instinct of these entities is to soothe the fevered brow of corporate power by insisting that corporate primacy be the starting point of any “reform.” Thus, when Washington began its widely ballyhooed effort last year to reform our health-care system, step number one was to announce publicly that the monopolistic, bureaucratic insurance behemoths that cost us so much and deliver so little would retain their controlling position in the structure. Likewise, Wall Street barons who crashed America’s financial system were allowed to oversee the system’s remake–and (Big Surprise!) the same top-heavy structure and shaky practices that caused the crash are being kept in place.
In other words, the foxes who ate the chickens keep being put in charge of designing the new hen house–so nothing really changes.
This is more than frustrating, it’s infuriating –and it’s debilitating for our democracy. As a fellow said to me about the lack of real changes in national policy during the Clinton presidency, “I don’t mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win.”
Why does this keep happening to us, and who’s doing it? It’s not merely a matter of too many fickle and pusillanimous politicians–they’re the on-stage actors in this drama, but not the producers, not the ones behind the scenes plotting to thwart the people’s democratic will. Who, specifically, are these plotters, and how do they impose their narrow agenda of self-interest over the public interest?
Pride, Prejudice, and Propaganda: Salvaging the American Dream By Robert S. Becker
By Robert S. Becker
Hat tip:Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
March 2, 2010
It is a truth universally acknowledged that predatory bankers in possession of great fortunes are in want of media lackeys, especially after savaging the American Dream. Actually not, considering the corporate media outlets reinforcing the clownish social gospel from Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs: conglomerates do good, indeed “God’s work.”How would any CEO richer than Midas know God’s mind or presume entry to heaven, according to a more reliable source, any more likely than a camel through the eye of a needle?
Propaganda aside, hear the hosannas this Great Recession isn’t so bad, no national tragedy, no generational plague, barely involving predatory lending. When viewed correctly this healthy downturn “will improve all of our lives by bringing us back to the original vision of the American Dream.” In the meantime, hard times cleanse debtors and clear books: thus, mystical free markets self-balance, punishing those lovers of excess and betrayers of contracts. Verdict; blame consumer spendthrifts for toppling our shining city on the hill. Rich people, not so much.
The media loves tough love that regains more than lost affluence but transcendent virtues: self-control, family togetherness, even, brace yourself, Yankee introspection. This Sunday CNN blessed us with its Pollyanna sermonette, profiling a perky Bernie Madoff survivor happier than ever. She’s not bitter towards this thug, so outlandish he dared capture, awash instead in wise acronyms, like SNT – Stop Negative Thinking. Unfortunately, no empty platitudes wash away unarguable research testifying joblessness and foreclosure can kill, with an array of anxiety disorders sharpened by depression, addictive and abusive behavior, divorce, even suicide – no endorsement for positive thinking. Note, those justifying pain always have jobs.
