The plan to rob your grandchildren

November 7, 8:03 AMSoutheast MI Home & Living ExaminerJackie DiGiovanni

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Political think tanks advise presidents, cabinet members, Senators, and Representatives. Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, has recently published an article that recommends the government take the money people have been working their entire lives to accumulate and "revise the contract between the generations" which is another way of saying "increase taxes."

Their target this time is the estate tax, also called the death tax. The IRS defines it this way: " The estate tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death." Currently estates valued at $3.5 million or more are subject to the estate tax. Through legislation enacted under President Bush, the estate tax will expire at the end of 2009.

Whether the "right to transfer property" is taxable is subject to debate. When people earn money, they pay a tax. When corporations make a profit, they pay a tax. When corporations pay out dividends from those taxed earnings to shareholders, the shareholders pay a tax on the same money. If people accumulate (it's called savings) money, that money has already been taxed once (earned income) or twice (income from stock dividends). The estate tax is the third tax on the same money. The estate tax discourages high personal achievement. As the tax and estate lawyers say: set up a trust, don't leave your money to the government.

The Democrats see an opportunity to take more of what people have worked to achieve and use it to advance their political interests. The Democrats plan to keep the estate tax and, if they follow the advice of the Brookings Institution, use is as a tool to continue to harvest the earnings of the dead to push their political agenda. This is an example of class warfare taken to the extreme.

The article is entitled " Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity." It is dated November 1, 2009 and carries the following author credits:

Isabel V. Sawhill, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
The Washington Post

The final paragraph reads:

So we also need to revise the contract between the generations in a way that gradually reallocates resources from the more affluent elderly to struggling younger families and their children. Such a shift would not only help create more opportunity, it would improve the productivity of the next generation, making its members better able to contribute to the costs of retirement - including their own.

The Democrat's answer to everything is to throw more money at it. There is no evidence in our history to suggest that more money fixes social problems. This is another move toward socialism in the United States.

If you believe the death tax needs to die, you need to do two things. First, contact your Senators and Representative and tell them to let the repeal happen. Second, consider carefully in the next election if you want to elect people who believe the answer to everything is higher taxes they can use to control more of your life.

The left-leaning Brookings Institution is located in Washington DC. They say, " Brookings is proud to be consistently ranked as the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank."

To contact Senator Stabenow and Senator Levin, click here.
To contact your Representative, click here.

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