The "Not Many People Pay The Estate...

An argument often brought up in favor of keeping the estate tax is the fact that not many people pay it. As Ryan Gustafson at Flickertail Journal points out:

...the only people paying the estate tax are the super-wealthy who can obviously afford it - the same people who benefit the most from our nation's laws and infrastructure. I really don't feel bad for the 18 mega-rich families who funded a campaign to influence voters across the country to believe the estate tax was a bad thing.

Right. Only the super-rich. So then it's ok to hit them with an unconscionably high tax rate on wealth they've already paid taxes on. I mean, they're rich so of course it's ok to stick it to them with double taxation.

/sarcasm

Whatever happened to "all men are created equal?" The left spends a lot of time talking about equality and equal treatment for the disadvantaged, well what about equal treatment for the advantaged? They certainly don't deserve to be taken advantage of just because they've managed to work hard and make the right decisions in their life.

It is hard, obviously, to create sympathy for successful people, but opposition to the estate tax is not about "who has what," it's about principle. It's about not punishing the most successful segments of our society for simply being successful, and it's about letting those successful people pass the wealth they've earned throughout their lives onto their children without undue hindrance from the government.

This quote from Ryan is telling:

...the estate tax is the first time a lot of income is taxed at all. Real estate accrues value as time passes, but taxes are only paid on that appreciation when the property is sold, not on April 15 every year. The estate tax is the only way to tax those unrealized gains.

Because we all know that no one should be allowed to gain wealth without it being taxed.

This attitude pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with modern liberalism. Does Ryan talk about the government even needing this money? No. All Ryan cares about is the fact that somewhere, someone could be earning money that should be taxed.

That's not how things are supposed to go. We, as citizens, should be taxed so that the government can pay for the services it renders us. We should not be taxed just because we're making money, yet that is exactly how these big-government liberals look at the situation.

It's why they should be kept from office at all costs.

You can read more from Rob Port at SayAnythingBlog.com