Why is there such a ruckus about the estate tax? Less than 1% of wealthiest Americans pay it. The real estate bubble brought it to the forefront a few years ago. People who had bought a house for $30,000 in the 1960’s found that its value had risen in some parts of the country to about $1,000,000.

The $600,000 exemption still meant that had to pay estate taxes for whatever portion of that remaining $400,000 that couldn’t be reduced by other deductions.

A simple matter would have been to raise the exemption.

Here’s what the IRS says, "The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death. The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you acquired them. The total of all of these items is your Gross Estate. The includible property may consist of cash and securities, real estate, insurance, trusts, annuities, business interests and other assets.

Once you have accounted for the Gross Estate, certain deductions (and in special circumstances, reductions to value) are allowed in arriving at your Taxable Estate. These deductions may include mortgages and other debts, estate administration expenses, property that passes to surviving spouses and qualified charities. The value of some operating business interests or farms may be reduced for estates that qualify.

After the net amount is computed, the value of lifetime taxable gifts (beginning with gifts made in 1977) is added to this number and the tax is computed. The tax is then reduced by the available unified credit. Presently, the amount of this credit reduces the computed tax so that only total taxable estates and lifetime gifts that exceed $1,000,000 will actually have to pay tax. In its current form, the estate tax only affects the wealthiest 2 percent of all Americans." (Source: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=164871,00.html) – continued below

It only affects the wealthiest 2% of all Americans. Where have we heard that before? Let’s talk dollars for a moment and then we’ll talk sense.

There was no estate tax for the wealthiest 2% of Americans in 2010. This, of course, was part of the Bush Tax Cuts set to expire December 31, 2010.

Obama Proposal for the Estate Tax

The Obama Administration proposed raising the exemption to $3.5 million from what was once $600,000. The tax rate proposed was 45%, about 10% lower than the old days and the same rate the Bush tax cuts lowered it to for 2009.

Robert Ball Has a Suggestion

Robert Ball served as a Social Security Commissioner during the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Ball proposed using the 2009 Bush estate tax plan and dedicating the revenue to the Social Security Trust Fund. Actuaries estimated that such an estate tax plan would close more than one-fourth of the Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years. (Source: Center on Budget and Policy Profiles)

Estate Tax Congressional Action

The United States House of Representatives passed the Obama proposal. Republicans in the Senate blocked it. Again I say, does that sound familiar?

The December 6, 2010 Compromise

The DEAL with the Republicans to move forward provides a two-year plan for the estate tax with an exemption of $5 million and a tax rate of 35%.

The Estate Tax America Needs

Please notice I did not use the word "want" in that heading. We the people need to begin looking at what we need more than what we want. We need, at a minimum, the estate tax proposed by the Obama Administration, and we need to dedicate it to the Social Security Trust Fund as proposed by Robert Ball.

This should be the first step before any measures aimed at reducing Social Security costs are undertaken. Add this footing to the program and let the actuaries then see what’s needed in the future.

Call to Action: Make sure your representatives in Congress know what they should do to protect America’s finances. You can also Stumble this article, Digg it, Tweet it or stick it on your Facebook page.

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Dear Washington D. C.:

America getting back to you again. Perhaps you’ve noticed a lot of new faces moving toward town, and a lot of them are coming courtesy of our country’s Tea Party movement.

Here’s something you need to know. Yes, there are a number of evil people who have tried to co-op this movement, and there are a few wild ideas floated by uninformed supporters of this movement. However, look around you. Congress is inundated with wild ideas and uninformed people already. This is nothing new. The "need to know" part of this is that it is a people movement that should not be identified with radio or television talk shows or Dick Armey, Michelle Bachmann or anyone else who says they speak for the people.

It’s the Stupid Economy

You must admit that Capitalism has a black-eye at the moment. Supply-side economics is not supplying the number of jobs needed by our country’s citizens – and that is the key to just about everything else you’re hearing.

Why is there such an uproar over ILLEGAL immigration? Because jobs are being lost. Why is there such an uproar over NAFTA and other trade agreements? Because jobs are being lost. Why is there such an uproar over Congressional legislation that rewards companies who ship jobs off our shores? Well, that’s simple – because jobs are being lost.

Why is there such an uproar over the Wall Street bailout? Because you chose to provide a benefit to people who create nothing but financial chaos and get rewarded with uproarious salaries. Wall Street’s analysts have corporations running scared. They must continually improve their bottom line by laying off workers or shipping jobs overseas in order to please the analysts. You bailed out one of our biggest problems, and we’re pissed about it. (Read Karl Marx, Socialism and the Tea Party Movement).

Now, however, we need to talk about government spending.

Debt, Deficits and Decisions

Fact – the United States government has a huge debt. Fact – the debt is caused by deficit spending. Fact – Deficit spending is caused by stupid decisions. We’ve all done it. We all do it. Keeping up with the Joneses as a life goal has been around longer than I have, and I’ve been here a long time.

It’s like Credit Card Debt. Credit cards, as a method of payment, is not a bad thing. They make life a lot simpler. However, when a credit card is used to buy something that is not needed or that cannot really be afforded, it becomes a bad thing. A balance is carried forward and, in many cases, an exhorbitant interest rate comes into play. Then you must devote a part of your income to paying the interest on your debt and a part of your income to paying the debt. In other words, you lost purchasing power because of not managing your desires for something you really couldn’t afford.

I keep reading about you folks spending money for a weapon that the military doesn’t want. I’m talking millions and millions of dollars you’re spending for something that is not needed – and that our country cannot afford. Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that you’re doing it to keep jobs in the military complex. And, that’s stupid. It would be less stupid if you used those millions and millions of dollars to have people make windshield wipers; at least that’s a needed product and you’d still have the jobs. But the truth is – we cannot afford either!

Be a Decider

You know, they say a stupid person is one who does something that fails and then does it again expecting a different result. Several years ago you gave a huge tax cut that helped America’s richest people and told us that those people would use that money to create jobs. Okay, we lost 8 or so millions jobs since then – and now you’re thinking about doing it again. Back up two sentences and read what I said.

Supply-side economics requires that money be in the hands of demanders. You know, it’s that old demand creates supply sort of thing. Without demand, the economy falters. You put money in the hands of people who are simply going to put it in the bank or stock market and you get one result. You put it in the hands of hungry people, and they will spend it quickly, creating demand. Is that so difficult to understand?

On November 2, 2010 a lot of decisions were made. Many of those decisions resulted in a whole bunch of new deciders who will be moving to Washington. Someone is going to be a decider. You can do it to benefit the country or voters will do it to replace you with a different decider.

Deficit Deciders Needed

Nobody said your job was supposed to be easy. You see, along the way folks there in your fair city forgot all about us having a government "of the people, by the people and for the people." November 2 should be a reminder that the voters didn’t forget. There are a lot of special interests people all up in arms about decisions that need to be made. No one wants deficit reduction to happen in their back yard. Well, it’s got to happen in everyone’s backyard in order for it to work.

What’s up with this XOS Wearable Exoskeleton suit developed by Defense Contractor Raytheon? The promo material says it will allow a soldier to pick up 200 pounds of stuff hundreds of times without getting fatigued. How much does it cost? How many times is it necessary to pick up 200 pounds at once? Could the stuff be boxed in fifty-pound boxes? Could four guys pick it up if it stayed in a 200-pound box? Why are you spending money on this? Money we don’t have, by the way. Not only that, but why is Defense Contractor Lockheed Martin building a similar suit called the Human Universal Load Carrier?

Did you pay both of these companies to develop the same thing when, in reality, it isn’t needed at a time we cannot afford it?

Military spending must be on the cutting block.

For the People

Don’t forget those words. Your decisions should be based on what’s best for the people. Sure, it would be nice to have a bike trail running through the middle of my hometown. But I can give up that bike trail so an elderly person can afford health care. Are you willing to take any degree of health care away from your grandmother so millionaires can continue receive a tax cut they don’t really need?

Are you willing to deprive a child of health care or a hot meal so you can build more unneeded weapons? Yes, I understand you cannot reduce the debt until you have a budget surplus rather than a budget deficit. This is what you should be thinking about. How will you decrease spending and, possibly, increase revenue on a yearly basis.

Forget Social Security for the moment. It does not contribute one penny to the deficit nor to the national debt. There is plenty of time to deal with that. Let’s do what’s needed now to confront the problems we have now.

What Others Are Saying:

About Social Security – "The system has been running a substantial surplus for a generation because the Baby Boom has been working and paying payroll taxes, and the Baby Boom dwarfs the generation now receiving benefits. The surplus has gone into the Trust Fund, which now stands at about $2.6 trillion (That’s trillion with a “T.”) As the Baby Boom retires, the system will stop running a surplus later this decade. Then the system will pay full benefits, including cost-of-living adjustments, from payroll taxes and the interest from the Trust Fund. About a decade after that, payroll taxes and interest on the Trust Fund will not be enough to pay full benefits, including cost of living adjustments. Then the system will pay full benefits, including cost of living adjustments, from payroll taxes, interest and the principal of the Trust Fund." – Huffington Post

Defense Spending – "The scale of defense spending in the USA, as Chalmers Johnson has repeatedly pointed out, is beyond what any other citizen base in the world shoulders as a percent of GDP and adds up to approximately the defense spending of the rest of the world combined. So a little nip and tuck here is considered significant. Why do these commissions never ask what it is that all of this defense spending does for America?" –

Rob Johnson, Director of Economic Policy, Roosevelt Institute

More Independent’s Day Articles

Independent’s Day
Independent’s Day – Social Security
Independent’s Day – Second Amendment
Independent’s Day – Deficit Reduction (this article)

FYI – here’s information you can use.

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Dear Washington D. C.:

America here again. Let’s talk Social Security.

And let’s be frank about it. The Social Security program is a much needed program to help seniors who can no longer work to help themselves.

There are a number of reasons these seniors can no longer work. Probably the most contentious and least obvious is that employers do not want to hire older workers. Then, of course, there’s the fact that many are physically or mentally unable to work. With fewer and fewer jobs available in the United States, it’s not unreasonable for older workers to move out of the work force and allow younger ones to move in.

What About Privitization?

This is probably the silliest idea that has ever come along. Younger workers already have the means to open individual retirement accounts and participate in 401K accounts. These have not always been available to those who are already retired or those nearing retirement age. And, those who did try to supplement Social Security with smallish privitized retirement accounts saw those accounts tank in the last few years. Throw in 8,000,000 job losses and a bursting housing bubble and many people had to cash in those retirement accounts to pay mortgages and living costs.

Saving for a rainy day is pretty damn stupid when there’s a hurricane in your back yard. It’s time to act. It’s time to protect yourself and your family, and that’s what a lot of people did. IRAs and 401Ks flooded Wall Street with new money. You, my Washington friends, deregulated those folks and allowed them to create derivatives – essentially a piece of paper with writing on it. And those wise folks began selling worthless paper to one another. It was sort of a "I’ll buy yours if you’ll buy mine" sort of thing. In their wisdom, they tied the worthless paper to worthless mortgages, also a product of your creative legislating.

And now you’re thinking about taking the security out of Social Security and giving it to Wall Street? How #@^&*%$ stupid do you think we are? Okay, good point. We did elect the fools who did this to us. But that era is over.

Raising the Retirement Age

Okay, if you will stop talking about privitization, I’ll talk to you about raising the retirement age. Go ahead and raise it to 70 for people currently under age 50. This will give those younger folks who probably already have other retirement accounts plenty of time to make any necessary changes to their retirement strategies – and it won’t mess with the folks who don’t have time to make any changes.

The Need for Social Security

Long ago we moved away from the agrarian society in which each family took care of itself. You talk about the federal deficit putting a burden on future generations of our children, but don’t put a lot of thought into dropping the aging generation directly onto the backs of their children. Again, we no longer live in that world.

Social Security, modest though it may be, still allows a person to have a little bit of respect. In many cases, a large portion of the Social Security check is paid to Medicare for health insurance. And, in some instances, the Social Security recipient qualifies for Medicaid to pay the coinsurance portion of Medicare.

We are not a society who casts the elderly aside. Families cannot fill the gap. Churches cannot fill the gap. Meals-on-Wheels cannot feed everyone every meal.

Yes, everyone gets a kick out of calling these Entitlement Programs. The connotation is that people feel they’re entitled to these benefits. Well, they are! Because they are American citizens. We are supposed to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We are supposed to have a government that provides for the common welfare of its citizens. Those aren’t my words. They were written by our Founding Fathers.

One last thing. You’re really not thinking about giving a tax break to the wealthiest 2% of Americans and take the money away from the elderly – are you? I mean, really, are you?

Franklin Roosevelt said it this way:

What Others Are Saying:

"Social Security is not in need of saving. It is the most fiscally responsible part of the entire federal budget. Its benefits are modest, averaging less than the minimum wage. It is extremely efficient, returning in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar spent. At its most expensive, when the Baby Boom generation is fully retired, Social Security will cost half as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, that France, Germany and many other countries are paying for their counterpart programs right now, today. Its projected deficit, still decades away, is manageable in size – just 0.7 percent of GDP, about the same amount as extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans." – Nancy Altman on Huffington Post

"Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty. Without Social Security, according to the latest available Census data (for 2008), 19.8 million more Americans would be poor. Although most of those kept out of poverty by Social Security are elderly, nearly a third are under age 65, including 1.1 million children." – Paul N. Van de Water and Arloc Sherman

More Independent’s Day Articles

Independent’s Day
Independent’s Day – Social Security (this article)

FYI – here’s information you can use.

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Washington, Wonkheads and Willy-Nilly politicians simply don’t get it. Americans are tired of do-nothing political parties. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have failed to produce a government of the people, by the people and, especially, FOR THE PEOPLE.

The latest example: Americans are tired of deficits. We tried it using credit cards and got our ass burned by big banks. Now, we don’t really appreciate Washingtonians running around building higher and higher deficits by spending money we don’t have or cutting taxes for the richest among us.

Republican Jon Kyl and Democrat (DINO) Blanche Lincoln want to cut about $250 million in estate taxes for the richest Americans. This is $250 million more than what was done during the Bush Years. Now is not the time to cut these taxes.

It’s Time to Pay the Bills

We know that America has long had a deficit that must be paid sometime. We know that the Clinton Administration left office with a budget surplus (taking in more than was being spent). We know the Bush Administration ran wild by cutting taxes and spending billions of unfunded dollars. (continued below)

An unfunded dollar is like using a credit card when you don’t have the money and really don’t know how you’re going to pay the bill when it comes due. Perhaps it’s time to do something none of us really wants to do – Pay the Bill. It will help when the tax cut for the rich comes to an end later this year, but we don’t need Senators Kyl and Lincoln giving them another cut.

People quickly talk about cutting Social Security and Medicare. It would not be morally right to do that with so many people having made plans based on those programs being available. More importantly, there are a great number of people who have been forced into factoring those programs into their future because of personal tragedies in the financial industry.

As bad as it hurts our feelings, Congress needs to increase the Medicare withholding tax by at least one percent (1%). While they’re at it, they need to increase the FICA tax by one percent (1%) as well. For those of you making $500 per week, those taxes would cost you $10. Ten bucks to help stabilize Social Security and Medicare is not a bad deal, and it would reduce the burden on our children in the future.

It’s Time to Pay for the Unfunded War

Yes, it’s important to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to stem the flow of dollars, but we need to pay for what has already been spent. Let’s increase the severance tax on oil being taken from our reserves by corporations not incorporated in the United States. This would include all three of the ones involved in the Gulf Oil Spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean. Oh, you thought only American companies were drilling in the Gulf?

Part Two of this would be termination of Halliburton contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can’t, or won’t, tell us where the money is going, so stop giving it to them!!!

It’s time to end the tax benefits for companies sending American jobs overseas. This should be a no-brainer. After all, why is the government subsidizing the reduction of our tax base? Let me put this a bit more plainly. We are currently spending money to lower our income. Is there a school in America that teaches the value of increased expenses and reduced income? Those of you who are Capitalism Hawks ought to be jumping on this with both feet.

Hey Washington -

We’re tired of listening to you blame one another for getting nothing done. Either get it done, or come home. Oh, wait a minute – we’re going to take care of that for you, I hope. I took part in early voting the other day and, though I really did not plan it this way, I walked away not having voted for a single incumbent.

I do not belong to the Tea Party movement. I’m just a pissed off American citizen.

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.