Follow up to "Moment of Truth"

I recently wrote about the House considering an increase in the federal minimum wage. I wanted to follow up on that, and make sure the issue is clear.

Republicans in the House decided to allow a vote on the matter - good news, right? Not entirely. Remember, they weren't voting to raise the federal minimum wage, they were voting on whether or not they should even allow the issue to be considered. Well, now that it is being considered, Republicans decided to tack on an "addendum" to a Democratically-authored bill, that eliminates the "inheritance tax". In short, Republicans said "Ok, we will consider your bill to raise the federal minimum wage, as long as the same bill cuts the inheritance tax". Why? Because they don't want to raise the minimum wage! They tacked something onto it that they knew Democrats don't want, in hopes that it would kill the effort. Yes, this happens all the time in our government - on both sides of the aisle - and it's why nothing ever gets done. But I find it especially offensive when you consider the points I made in my earlier post regarding the current federal minimum wage.

So what's so bad about eliminating the inheritance tax? It is a complicated issue that would take paragraphs to break down, but it boils down to two points, both long and short term: Long term - the inheritance tax imposes a tax on large amounts of assets that are passed from one family member to another, and minimizes the chance that a family can build ridiculous mountains of wealth over the course of only a few generations. In other words, it prevents an aristocracy. Aristocracy is exactly what motivated our founding fathers to hop on a dirty wooden boat and come here to start over. Short term - because the tax is only imposed on large inheritances (read: the super-wealthy) it accounts for many millions of dollars every year in tax revenues. Given the deficit we have now (Thanks W!) we cannot afford to cut tax revenues.

I know that is a simple explanation, but it matters. And it disgusts me to know that a super-wealthy, priveleged group of people (Senators and Representatives) are comfortable with millions of citizens living on $10,000 a year. If I can find the numbers, I will do a comparison to welfare. I wonder if it is more lucrative to be on welfare than to actually get a job and earn a living. Knowing our government...