What really got me was this comment from Gregoire:
"Those who are rich in Washington state are rich because we have a great state," Gregoire said when she announced her intention to partially reimpose the estate tax. "The economy has allowed them to prosper. ... Why not have them pay for education for the children of our state?"
Translation: Those who are rich are rich because the government let them become rich. Pure. Unadulterated. Socialism. People who become rich do so through hard work and smart choices. Also, the image that proponents of the estate tax want you to form in your mind is that of the so-called idle rich. These are people who simply have a lot of cash sitting in investment accounts and they're living a life of leisure without doing any work. While there are some people who fit this definition, the vast majority of rich people are hard-working. They are business-owners, and their businesses provide jobs and power the economy. Their wealth is in the value of the businesses they own, not simple cash or securities. Take, for example, this man:
"I would support a higher sales tax, even an income tax in this state, rather than having a death tax installed," said Don Root, who wants his sons to carry on his Seattle-based manufacturing and design company after he dies.
Reinstating an estate tax at the same time the federal government is poised to abolish it would cause successful Washington businesses to leave the state, taking a lot of good jobs with them, said Root, whose company employs roughly 450 people in Washington.
It's not as if his sons will be able to sit on their butts and watch the money roll in. They'll have to work for it by running the business. They'll be earning that money.
If the estate tax forces the heirs of a business-owner to liquidate the business in order to pay the tax, just how in the hell does that help the economy? The proposed legislation affects only those whose estates are worth two million dollars or more, but this is not a hard limit to exceed when you own your own business.
Gregoire is not the only one supporting reinstating the estate tax. The father of the country's wealthiest individual, and a wealthy man in his own right, is also onboard:
"The question is, why are people wealthy?" [William] Gates [Sr.] said at a news conference last week. "They worked hard, they're smart, and they are American ... (with) a police force that works, a court system that works, a market system that makes it possible to dispose of what you own. Economists tell us that having a stable market adds 30 percent to the value of everything you own."
Gates is a leading voice in the campaign to preserve the estate tax through Responsible Wealth, a national network contending that concentrated wealth tends to turn into concentrated political power and is therefore bad for democracy.
At a forum last week in Olympia, Gates said Washington's tax system puts a disproportionate burden on poor people.
One of the best ways to shift the tax burden from low-income and middle-class residents to those who can best afford it is to restore Washington's estate tax, he said.
Of course Mr. Gates does not have to worry about whether or not his son will inherit anything when he dies. And in the case of Bill Gates Jr., when he dies it's not as if Microsoft will have to be liquidated to pay the estate tax. But a smaller business, where one person essentially owns it all, does not have that luxury.
I do agree that wealthy people have a greater social obligation to help those less fortunate, for indeed I do recognize that fortune plays a role though not the only one, and usually not the major one. Yet I'd rather see that obligation fulfilled through charitable giving rather than government-mandated wealth redistribution. That, after all, is what an estate tax really is and, as such, is socialism pure and simple.
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