Did Frank Blethen get to them? I'll be sure to remember this the next time they ask for campaign donations. From the NYT:
With economic pain and suffering on the rise, how do the senators justify a big tax cut for multimillionaires? By asserting that an estate tax cut is just what struggling Americans need.
Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat of Arkansas, co-sponsored the measure with Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican of Arizona. She said it was critical to creating jobs through small businesses. “With all the money we’ve spent to help the economy, very little of it has filtered down to Main Street and family-owned businesses,” she said.
The implication is that upon the death of an owner, estate taxes typically devastate small businesses and the jobs they provide. That is swill.
Under today’s estate tax, which is retained in both the House version of the budget and in President Obama’s version, 99.8 percent of estates will never owe any estate tax. That’s because the tax applies only to estates that exceed $7 million per couple or $3.5 million for individuals, and a vast majority of American families are not and never will be that wealthy.
Of the tiny number of estates that are taxable, almost none are small businesses. A new analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that under 2009 law, only 100 small businesses and family farms would owe any estate tax in 2011.
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