Libs: "Pay for Katrina, keep the death tax!"

Many liberals are calling for Congress to scrap their plans on repealing the death tax...or as they'd rather call it, the "estate tax." Yes, this is to help pay for Katrina relief. Hey, credit them with at least floating an idea this time...it's been a long time since they've proposed an idea on anything related to public policy. Cut them slack, though...when does one find time to craft policy if the entire day is spent bitching about Bush and the GOP?

The death tax is the most grossly reprehensible tax that exists today. There is something sick and perverted in the thinking behind it: If you buy stuff (house, land, investments, etc.) with your after-tax money, you can still be taxed on said possessions (i.e your "estate"), up to a grotesque 55%! In short, the government confiscates part, sometimes more than HALF, of your kids' inheritance after you croak. Double taxation, and one where you pay the second time around after you meet your Maker.

The mentality driving the death tax is also the mentality that thinks we ought to have a "progressive" income tax. You know, the higher your income, the higher the percentage of your income should be confiscated. It's not enough that everyone pay the same percentage, which would still assure that those with higher incomes would naturally pay more in income taxes! No, they should pay at a higher RATE. By God (insert newest fad religion's deity here), now that will teach those damned achievers a thing or two about achieving!

By the way, here's a quick history lesson for you. The ideas of the estate tax and progressive income taxation are both found in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels concoct 10 things that must occur in order to implement the "worker's paradise" they envisioned. Number 3 is "Abolition of all rights of inheritance." The death tax attempts to do just that, albeit in baby steps. Number 2 is "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax." Sound familiar?

So the next time you hear someone advocating the death tax and a progressive income tax, just keep in mind that these ideas have been around since Marx and Engels wrote about them in 1848. Good company to keep, eh?