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Home / Articles / Editorial / Letters / If you want to talk about a ‘death tax,’ look at Kasich’s tax plan
Wednesday, February 20,2013
If you want to talk about a ‘death tax,’ look at Kasich’s tax plan
To the Editor:
It's apparently something in Republicans' DNA that causes them to embrace rewarding the wealthy at the expense of the public good.
Take Ohio Gov. Kasich's new plan to replace income taxes with sales taxes as the top revenue generator for Ohio. Rather than reducing the widening gap between the very rich and poor/middle class, Kasich's plan actually accelerates it by doubling down on more breaks for the well-to-do at the expense of the average citizen.
Some particulars of this latest reverse Robin Hood scheme break new ground in indecency. For example: Over many years, Republicans have shamelessly termed the estate tax as "the death tax." But quite unlike death, the federal estate tax applies to only the ultra-wealthy. It currently kicks in only for estates worth more than $5.3 million, basically the famed "1 percenters." Many low-information voters have been fooled into supporting the elimination of this "death tax." And in Ohio last year, the Republican-dominated legislature did just that by abolishing altogether the estate tax at the state level.
But here's the irony: Kasich's 2013 plan proposes a new levy that truly qualifies as a "death tax," since it applies to all state residents who pass away. Yes, Gov. Kasich may now be considered Ohio's Grim Reaper since his proposal calls for extending sales taxes on all funeral expenses in Ohio, a category of cost currently exempt from taxation, thus giving grieving families one more reason to mourn.
You can be dirt poor in Ohio, but soon you may be paying a new GOP sales tax when you bury your loved one.
Michael
Barr
Gilham
Road
Athens
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It must be in Democrat DNA to turn everything into a class and race war.
It must be a Democrat thing to lock people into welfare programs that lock people into poverty.
That said, I am against Kasich's sales tax scheme, just as I am against his bow to Obamacare and accept their Medicare funding.
A sales tax is punitive to poor people in particular. Including the sales tax we currently have on the books.
Do you know what else is punitive to the poor as well? The minimum wage. But hey, that's another story.
As far as Republicans being friends of the wealthy, it must be noted that the richest Congressmen in Washington are all Democrats, and that President Obama received more funding from Wall Street than any other president in history.
Republicans traditionally believed in conservatism, which believes in economic liberalism- that people should have the opportunity to create wealth without barriers. And taxes are certainly a barrier.
Democrats traditionally believe in progressivism, or they have at the very least since LBJ. And that view is very anti-American. Government should have control over your life and should punish people for producing wealth. Its roots are in Marxism and "economic equality", when in reality it just makes the economic divide bigger.
Kasich is raising your sales tax, and that is wrong. It hurts the poor. But Kasich isn't a real conservative, and his love of accepting federal money and raising taxes is more Democrat than Republican.
And by the way- the estate tax affects everyone who leaves a gift for loved ones behind- anywhere from 1800 dollars on up. If you were poor but saved a substantial amount of money to give to your heirs, it would be subjected to a tax. And taxing a perecentage of $1800 means more to a person than taxing a rich man's estate.
I believe in no sales tax, no punitive taxes, no corporate taxes, and a flat or simplified tax. True conservatives do too.
Start with getting rid of the teacher unions
What happened to these guys after Eisenhower?