Wednesday, January 4, 2017

How is the new Republican-majority Congress starting the year?

The top three bills to be presented for consideration run strong on Freedom. And two are being proposed by Texans. We're going to see a repeal of the Death Tax, presented by Rep. Mac Thornberry (my represetative), the imposing of term limits co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, and the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity bill sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson NC. Sounds like a good start to me.

Oh yeah, remember when the Democrats where all, "Give Hillary a Democratic Congress she can control!" Heh, yeah, so do I. And now they're vowing to do everything to obstruct Pres. Elect Trump.
Good times.




8 comments:

Rob said...

I'm not sure I understand this death tax thing... My mom passed away & both my sister & I received a goodly chunk of money, without taxes. "Goodly" for me is probably different from "goodly" for you but still.
Then there is the airhead Paris Hilton, she doesn't do anything cause her grandpa worked hard.

It seems to me that things are working out ok right now. I'm wondering if this repeal is for the uber wealthy, building a family dynasty kind of thing like you find in the old European banking families.

The best I've even seen was when Jesse Ventura was Governor of Minnesota, the professionals each controlled a different piece of the legislature.
Their greed was held in check by having to work together to override his veto. They did that often but 'we' had a much better chance of the laws being less one sided.

hiswiserangel said...

Rob, there's a whole spectrum of people between you and the uber elites. Erasing the Death Tax would help the Looten family, who owns the NAPA auto parts store. It's their livelihood, and something Mr. Looten would like to pass down to his kids one day. On his death, the Death Tax would all but wipe it out. They'd have to go into serious debt to pay the tax or sell of most of the business. It would also help the Blanchards, fifth generation farmers. Rich by my standards, paupers by Trump's standards. Each death has whittled away at the family farm until there's not much left. They try to buy back land when they can afford it; but every time the head of the family dies, the Death Tax chews up what they've spent generations working and building. for them, it's not a trust fund, it's their life. It's what they do, from sunup to sundown, in all weather, because they love it.

So, in your jealousy and hatred of the uber rich, are you willing to throw those in the middle to the wolves?

rickn8or said...

But the repeal of the Death Tax will be vilified by the Dems and the MSM as "Rich Republicans don't want to pay their fair share of taxes!"

Rob said...

Hmmm, thanks Angel for the explanation on what the tax does to some families.

FWIW I don't have enough time in my life for jealousy or hatred of anyone. I realize that it's an odd concept in this day & age of "me good, you bad, no comprise" but... I don't care.

Anonymous said...

farmers and ranchers just want to farm and ranch, but investors, wealthy rancher wannabees and others have inflated the value of land far beyond it's productive value.... a "middle class" widow rancher running 300 cows that return around $75,000 to $80,000 net income per year, and owning 6000 acres is looking at an estate with a conservative value of $6,000,000,(or twice that or more) and her heirs would be subject to the death tax....the land is worth a lot, true, BUT ONLY when/if it sells, not as a means of making a living and as a way of life....no one should have to sell their "home" to pay a tax, no matter how big the "home"is....


vaquero viejo

whisky O said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
markm said...

The first thing to understand about estate taxes, income taxes, and other "soak the rich" schems is that they never soak the _really_ rich. There are always loopholes for those that can afford their own congressmen. The federal income tax was established about a hundred years ago; the Rockefeller family promptly put it's vast fortune into a trust fund, protected from the tax. It's still providing a comfortable living for their great-grandchildren, although it's divided too many ways to make them really rich. Warren Buffet revealed that he shields most of his income from income tax, and I don't expect much of his wealth to be subject to the estate tax. Who does pay those taxes is farmers and small businessmen, people with enough money to be a target but not enough for the best tax shelters or the best tax accountants.

Anonymous said...

Clearly, we don't want the govt picking winners and losers, but there IS a valid social interest in leveling the playing field somewhat. I mean fine, the death tax doesn't work as intended, so scrap it, but replace it with SOMETHING, otherwise a small number of families will continue to build dynasties. We've already tried that for a few centuries and it doesn't seem to work out too well. Bad for opportunity, bad for society, and ultimately bad even for the members of those dynastic families.

Look at the flip side of each of the examples given in the other comments.
For every Looten family trying to keep NAPA going, there's a Walton family inheriting hundreds of millions, with relatively little interest in running the business beyond milking the cash cow.
For every Blanchard family trying to continue running the family farm, there's a Bush family buying up millions of acres around the world for no good purpose other than to consolidate control.
For every "Rob" inheriting a "goodly chunk", there's an airhead Paris Hilton chafing the moral fabric of society.
Etc etc etc.

Naturally, I don't want to see families lose homes, land, or businesses, (assuming that they actually live in those homes, work that land, run those businesses), but neither do I want to see a world with more Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Waltons, Hiltons, Clintons, Bushes, Soroses, etc. Despite their wealth, they are all little more than social parasites.