Posted on 12/08/2010 7:52:40 AM PST by Qbert
House Democratic leaders unhappy with the tax-cut deal President Obama struck with Republicans are signaling they will try to draw the line at a GOP-favored proposal for the estate tax.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday escalated the Democratic criticism of the agreement and said the estate-tax provision was “a bridge too far.”
The comments by Pelosi and other party leaders reflected widespread anger among House Democrats at the president for caving too early, by their characterization, and essentially leaving them out of final negotiations with Republicans.
While Pelosi retains the Speaker’s gavel for nearly another month, the tax-cut endgame offered a sobering glimpse at life in the House minority, and House Democrats entered a Tuesday night caucus meeting unsure of their leverage in the tax debate.
With Republican support and a few dozen conservative Democrats already on the record supporting a temporary extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts, the deal conceivably could pass without a majority of the House Democratic Caucus. Democrats are most strongly opposed to the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, but their focus on the estate tax could provide a more realistic opportunity to tweak the proposal.
Pelosi, speaking to reporters for the first time since Obama announced the tentative agreement on Monday, acknowledged there was “unease” within the Democratic ranks about the deal.
“We are listening to what our caucus has to say, but so far, the response has not been very good,” the Speaker said after a leadership meeting in her office.
The Obama-GOP agreement sets the inheritance tax at 35 percent for individuals bequeathing more than $5 million to their heirs. The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill in 2009 that would set the estate tax at 45 percent and start the exemption at $3.5 million. There is no estate tax in 2010.
“We believe the estate tax in the bill is a bridge too far,” the Speaker said. That provision shifts the balance in the agreement to Republicans and “ends any kind of symmetry between the two sides.”
Two other House Democratic leaders — Reps. George Miller (Calif.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) — denounced the inheritance provision.
“The estate tax is just gratuitous,” said Miller, a close Pelosi ally.
Van Hollen, the assistant to the Speaker and the House Democratic negotiator on taxes, noted the estate-tax provision would cost $68 billion over the next two years.
“I have very, very serious reservations with this deal,” he said. “I’m certainly not in a position to recommend this to my colleagues, I’ll tell you that.”
Van Hollen warned that the tax package is not final until the lower chamber endorses it.
“The House never signed off on this, so it’s certainly not a done deal,” Van Hollen told The Hill.
The chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), also excoriated the agreement with Republicans.
“I don’t agree with this. I think the president’s wrong,” Slaughter said. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t have held on there for a little while until we all got to talk about it, but obviously he couldn’t.”
As she did in a written statement earlier Tuesday, Pelosi strongly defended the Democratic proposals in Obama’s compromise and denounced the GOP-favored provisions, principally a temporary extension of tax cuts for high earners.
“On the Democratic side, you have stimulus, you have job creation, you have growth for the economy,” Pelosi said. “On the Republican side, you have no creation of jobs and an increase in the deficit. So we have some unease with the proposal.”
Democratic leaders acknowledged they were not involved in the negotiations Obama conducted with Republicans over the weekend. Asked if the House was adequately included in the talks, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) replied: “I don’t think House Democrats think so.”
Hoyer said earlier Tuesday that the House wants the Senate to act first on the tax-cut proposal. In what amounted to a symbolic vote, the House last week approved an extension of tax cuts only for middle-income Americans, but Senate Democrats were unable to overcome a Republican filibuster. Hoyer defended the House vote, saying the move “wasn’t specious at all.”
“That bill reflected the priorities of the Democratic Caucus,” he said. “That was our priority. We sent that bill to the Senate.”
A high estate tax is more damaging to small business, and hence employment, than a high income tax. But then the Dims WANT to destroy family farms and businesses.
That would be a good outcome, IMO. Let rates go up for everyone and we'll have the next Congress deal with it.
We should not be negotiating with the enemies within that promote Marxism
It's only fair.
Let me tell anyone here how it feels to have just got slammed with this:
My dad died and left our family business in 1997. There were almost no estate exemptions then and we had to sell the businesses eventually to pay the then 50 or 55% tax...
Flash forward to 2008. My mom dies. She had some exemptions. and had gifted some college money to her grandkids.
Her tax bill was 1.4 million over the exemption. She left a life insurance policy of 850,000. I had to leverage my business to satisfy the taxes or the government would have simply seized and auctioned some properties which we had to sell anyhow.
All this was valued at time of death when values were still fairly high. All those assets ..land, vacation home, bank stock are worth about 50% today what they were then.
Long story short. Death taxes cost her heirs around 2M net versus 2010 or today’s deal which would have put us near or under the exemption ...
and I’m still left owing some death tax a little....
it’s a good thing I have several of my own ventures too but I’ve milked them to pay Uncle Sam..
it’s a damn racket...and we fell right on the line ...just above total exemption levels to get pinched...someoene with 10-20 million or truly rich could still be rich
you get taxed like this and you are just above the line and you basically get your family wealth snuffed
now I better figure out how to protect my family better and I’m not a fraction the success my dad is....you know how....put all you can in your kids names and don’t get a fancy CPA looking to cover his ass first....just do things slow and careful...in 20 years...nobody will know the difference
rant off/...it’s been a nightmare....God bless my folks ..my dad did not work hard all his life to leave most of it to an entitlement society but sadly that is about what happened
it chaps me to see billionaires claim it’s just fine to strip my family’s fortune to pay for a bloated government which is killing America when they can clip off 50% and still have more money than God.
2 million for them is yearly jet charter change, for us it was a cornerstone for a jumpstart for grandkids
Will just one Liberal explain the need to tax someone upon death? After all, taxes have been paid for years on that earned income and capital gains, why is there a need to tax even more on the same money? Could it be Liberal greed and simply the transfer of wealth?
I’m really sorry to hear this, wardaddy.
There’s absolutely no justification for breaking up successful small family businesses, especially with our unemployment woes. Even looking at things from a tax-revenues standpoint alone, the amount of revenues that could be generated in the future by keeping businesses going will far exceed the one-time tax hit under the estate tax.
I really hope the GOP starts to change the way it talks about these issues, and shows the real suffering that these ridiculous estate tax policies cause, instead of getting caught in the class-warfare “tax cuts for the wealthy” trap.
The right needs to institute a policy of ZERO TOLERANCE FOR MARXISTS IN CONGRESS.
CPC members need to be hunted down like the degenerate communist animals they are and jailed for subversion and grand theft.
Letting these people walk around as if they are ordinary Americans is a serious mistake.
Go back to the 70’s when family farm after family farm had to be broke up or sold outright to pay the death tax.
No level of ANY gov’t should be allowed to tax a dead mans estate, let the Buffets, Gates etal write a check to the gov’t if they so desire.
Amen to that!!!
thanks
ya ... weiner said today that its all unearned income. heirs not worthy but he is. dead people should not care if politicians take it all.
Bumping both of your posts.
Did either of you hear the Weiner’s interview on this subject with Megyn Kelly? There was a time when she would have reached through the camera lens, and ripped his heart out.
She’s going soft...
Making the rates permanent would require not only passage in the House but 60 votes in the Senate, plus the President's signature.
How is the GOP House going to accomplish all of that?
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