Not to mention, farms and small businesses don't have to pay off the Federal Estate Tax all at once, but get to pay it over the course of fifteen years.

It's hard to imagine a combination of net worth and rate of return that would cause problems paying the tax. And even if it does...well, the beneficiaries sell the farm for its multimillion value, pay the tax with part of that, and live happily ever after.

This notion that the Federal government has a role in preserving certain lifestyles is absurd. Even if one of those lifestyles is farming.

But it's got Death in the name..

If you oppose the Death Tax, then Terri Shaivo died in vain.

When I read this story I was sad for the poor farm family. All their life they have supported Republicans because they figured Republicans stand for the same things they hold dear. Then they suddenly they get a chance to host the guy most likely to the Republican nominee next election and they are elated. They invite all their friends and plan a big deal. America's mayor is the highlight of their life. Then his people find out they aren't rich so he pisses on them.

Sad, typical, but sad. Maybe they will think twice about voting Republican the next election.

John Edwards ought to just show up and ring their door bell, no press or anything. He should listen to them for 20 minutes. By the end of the day he will win the entire county. The idea would work for Obama or maybe even Hillary if she could ditch the press.

Over at TPM, Somerby apparently suggested this was a non-issue and that it would be unfair to blame Giuliani personally for this, since it was surely a staffer snafu. I'm not so sure. It's a shitty fucking way to treat people, and while Giuliani surely wasn't personally involved, it doesn't speak well of the tone he has set for his staff (and that he would set for his hypothetical administration).

"...trying to find a family farm that would eventually have to be sold in order to pay inheritance taxes."

That's a typo right?

You meant to say:

sold in order to pay medical bills.

Right?

Like the name says:

Is it really so shocking that a presidential campaign would unceremoniously drop a campaign stop when it finds out it made a blunder?

The story does highlight the craven dishonesty of the campaign to end the estate tax, and it does show a certain lack of class, but in general I can't see (before this story changed everything) any other campaign spending time or money to give soft landing to a handful of folks that had been sucked into a doomed stop.

Weird thing to me is that they should have been caught by surprise on this. I get the sinking feeling that the whole "Death Tax" thing is NOt a cynical exercise fot these clowns, in the sense that they're so blinkered by ideology that they actually believe in it--they really think that if you throw a rock in Iowa you're going to hit a farmer who's on the verge of losing his farm to the revenooers on account of it. "Dang, how'd we miss? Must be one ub'm somwhere around here!"

Sheesh.

Well, come on, Kevin. We wouldn't want people like Paris Hilton or George W. Bush or Steve Forbes, who have worked so hard all their lives to pay taxes on the money they inherited, would we? Oh that's right - none of them have done an honest days work in their sickening lives.

Never mind.

I think you mean that Jesus died in vain if we don't repeal the estate tax NOW!!!!!!

The ethanol boom and explosion in 1031 real estate exchanges have driven farm land prices through the roof so 500-1000 acre farms that might have been worth $2-4 million a couple of years ago are now worth $3-6 million. Add in other investments and assets and in this election cycle you may actually see some 'family farms' touching the inheritance tax levels. That may be an interesting dynamic in Iowa over the next several months.

I agree with DrBB. I would believe that the rank and file movement conservatives dont realize how rich you need to be to get hit with inheritance taxes. They could make this mistake, just like many others.

Another photo-op preznut.

When will Rudy wear the flight jacket?

As I recall Reagan never put up with playing dress up dolly but Bush would put a dress on if Karl asked him too.

"The 'death tax' hurts the most productive members of society: the children of the extremely wealthy." Also, "Steve Forbes is campaigning on a platform that HE should be taxed at the same rate as his yacht crew."

In actuality, Forbes was campaigning on a platform that he be taxed at a lower rate than his yacht crew. And in fact, this is now a reality. Warren Buffet had some of his staff calculate their tax rates while Buffet calculated his own, and found - surprise! - he was being taxed at about half the rate as his staff.

That's where I have liked Edwards. He has done an effective job of speaking in language everyone clearly understands, how wrong this is. As he says to Southern whites, "You've been voting Republican for forty years now. What do you have to show for it?" No wonder he was the candidate Bush feared the most in '04.

On another note - and not to stray too far from this thread - however, I am coming to the conclusion tht the restoration of habeus corpus is, for me at least, a deal-maker or breaker for the Democrats.

There are plenty of family farms worth several million dollars. Most of them are a) not in Iowa, b) are owned and operated by extended families (so that inheritance taxes would generally not be paid on the farm's entire value upon the death of just one family member, and c) have values closely related to changes in the going rate for land. Farms both large and small tend to increase in value the closer they are to growing cities -- but this means they are more likely to be sold, and the land taken out of agriculture, regardless of what the current state of the inheritance tax is.

If there is anyone who doesn't understand the tax issue, please direct them to http://youtube.com/leearnold and scroll down to hit the videos "Social Security" and "Bush's Tax Cuts." They are in a flow-chart animated language I named "Ecolanguage."

I can't help but feel the whole thing is a metaphor for modern Republicanism.

Why would Rudy care? He wants to lie about the "death" tax - what difference does it make whether he happens to be lying about his hosts' susceptibility to it? I don't get it.

Yes, we're now at the point where even photo ops are too real for them.

To be fair, this is actually something that nearly every campaign I've ever worked with does: the advance people scout out possible locations for events. Considering something and then deciding against it is really not that uncommon or weird: what's uncommon is that this particular family got so pathetically and tragically worked up about it so that they then got a big letdown.

I hereby recommend that Time-Warner, Inc. buy the rights to all Republican Party presidential campaigns, and add them to their Warner Bros. subsidiary's historic archive of Looney Tunes cartoons.

plunge: what's uncommon is that this particular family got so pathetically and tragically worked up about it so that they then got a big letdown.

Rudy has a history of being a dick. As a result, every time his campaign does something dickish, he's suspected of being a dick.

Oh, and your fans don't like being reminded they are just props in a photo op (for which you deride them as pathetic and tragic.)

Dick.

Tomorrow's headline in the Anamosa Journal-Eureka:

Iowa to Rudi: Drop Dead

To Plunge:

Are you a Republican? I say that because Republicans often play the "blame the victim" card. Was it really unrealistic of them to get hopeful and excited about this? Please.

Just a stray thought which I thought I'd throw out and see what other people think based on today's postings.

Ove the last few years, the Democrats have been reactive to the Republican party. After all, both houses and the Presidency have been in the hands of America's right wing. The Democrats until the last election were a minority party and could not drive anything.

But now the Democrats hold both house and can drive forward legislation. And yet the Democrats are still being reactive to the agenda of the Republican party.

Would it not suit the Democrats better is they started drafting legislation in line with their manifesto at a rapid rate of knots which the house republicans would work non-stop to derail and Dubya would veto every single time.

At the same time, they should then stand up and say, "look America, you voted us in to do a job which we're doing but the Republicans are doing nothing but going against your wishes? If you vote them out, you'll get what we promised you."

The DOJ Scandal is actually NOT bad for the Republican party because the Democrats are not landing any knock-out punches. It is getting bogged down in procedural issues and losing momentum.

The whole funding of Iraq is NOT bad for the Republican Party because the Democrats are not standing up with one simple single message.

All I'm saying is why don't they keep these bubbling away on the back burner but focus their real effort on making the Republicans look stupid by rejecting EVERYTHING.

The future of America is at stake here and the Democrats are fighting on a battlefield of the Republicans choosing still. By legislating non-stop from now until the elections on all issues they were voted in for, not just one or two they win.

They are being constructivem productive, working for the voters.

Rudi and Barack are providing the electorate with a daily demonstration of how to screw up a campaign.

Rudi and Barack are providing the electorate with a daily demonstration of how to screw up a campaign.

True, true. Except for the part about Barack.

Well, shucks, why didn't Giuliani just head a bit north to James Lileks, who would be quite happy to whine interminably to him about how the estate tax has Ruined not only His Own Life but also His Parents' Former Employees' Lives (in some way that he cannot coherently explain, either on his blog or in his equally whiny private E-mails to me)? As a friend of mine says, it's endlessly amusing to hear people complain about how much trouble big inheritances have caused for them.

Guiliani is an asshole. End of story.

He's a corrupt, hypocritical mofo as well. Go read the Village Voice article about how he managed to get his grimy little fingers on 4 NY Yankee world series rings.

Plus his own kids won't talk to him. What does that say about a man?

"Plus his own kids won't talk to him. What does that say about a man?"

That he is Reaganesque?

Ba-da-bim!

The "deb was told.." link has been slashdotted. Anybody have a saved copy to link to?

Uh, no. It's not that they "practically never find one." It's that that have never, ever found one. I remember hearing this years ago on PBS when Bill Gates Sr. and the heir to the Oscar Meyer fortune were on explaining their support of the estate tax. I'm astonished that the Democrats never call the Republicans on this one. After all, with such a persistent dearth of evidence, it'd be something to really nail 'em with.

brian: "I'm astonished that the Democrats never call the Republicans on this one. After all, with such a persistent dearth of evidence, it'd be something to really nail 'em with."

They're probably afraid that the Republicans will be mean to them.

That article is from 2001. Anyone have more recent info? Seems like the limits have increased since then, making it even harder to find a family paying estate tax on family farms.

Maybe he can campaign on a farm that receives a million dollars a year in federal subsidies. Shouldn't be hard to find one.

He can give, you know, some speech about self-reliance, the evils of welfare, leaving business to the market, that sort of thing.

RT: not only can it be paid over 15 years but in some cases, if it stays in the family for 10 years and stays farm land, it is forgiven entirely (I don't know the dollar amount limit for this).

irrigated corn land in colorado is currently selling for about $3000/ac, or about $400k for a quarter section (yes, I know a qtr is 160ac, but with circles not all of it is irrigated). many "family" farms out there comprise more than a section, i.e. $1.6mil for the land, and another chunk for the machinery, sheds, house, etc.

the whole idea of mom and pop scratching out a living on a few acres mostly went away by 1900 as the big, smart farmers bought out the little ones and later as advances in machinery made it possible for one or two people to farm a huge amount of land. today it is perfectly feasible for a mom and pop corn farm to be 8 quarters (that's 2 sq miles for you city boys) and be farmed mostly by the farmer and his wife.

and that little von Sprecken farm that rudy has besmirched? you'd starve on it raising corn, but if it is a feedlot raising cows, not so much.

I'm sure the right wing corporate media, drudge, rush and man hands will be outraged by this and cover it non-stop like it was some candidate getting a hair cut right?

right?

is this on?

A favorite story around here from 20 years ago. A New Yorker, A Californian, and a Kentuckian were each given $1,000,000. What were their plans? The New Yorker, "I'm going to buy a co-op in Yorkville." The guy from LA was going to buy a house on a couple of acres in Montecito. The Kentuckian: "I'm going to buy my dad's place and farm it until the money runs out."

Let's see. I inherit a $100 million business from dear old dada but I get a low ball valuation such that I likely have to pay a mere $20 million in taxes. So I borrow the money and pay about $1 million in interest as I generate about $10 million in operating profits each year. How in heck am I forced to sell the business. Those that makes this claim are just stupid - or they assume the rest of us are.

Must stop Rudy. Must stop Rudy. He can beat Hillary. WE MUST STOP HIM! Even if it means manufacturing stories out of the kind of decisions that are made every day, in every political campaign, since the beginning of time.

Nice to see that others in this country are starting to see the warts. Rudy was in deed a great mayor during his 1st term after replacing the highly ineffective Dinkins. Of course, ANYBODY would have been great following in Dinkins footsteps. But it was during his 2nd term, when his true megalomaniacal personality came shining through. The idiom "absolute power corrupts absolutely" could have a picture of him attached to it. What most of the country fails to realize is that in the 2-3 year period before 9/11 Rudy had come to be viewed as a quasi-hitleresque character, even so far as to be lampooned in many political cartoons with the tiny little hitler moustache.

A leopard doesn't change its spots and Giulianni will revert back to form. This elections extremely long campaign season works AGAINST him as eventually the warts will all come into view.

IMO - He's got NO CHANCE of winning.

NYer

Know your enemy, Billy Bob. This my little cricket you singularly fail to do. So little understanding. So little time.

Lol, no, I'm not a Republican. I work on Democratic campaigns. If you know what an advance team is, then you know that this story is SOP for virtually any and all campaigns EXCEPT for the the people getting so invested it. For all I know the advance people led this family on too far, and that's not really nice, but the basic story of them looking for campaign events, tossing out possibilities, asking people for permission, and then changing their minds when it doesn't fit the message or doesn't work out is completely in line with what every Democratic campaign I've worked for does.

It's amazing how quick you guys are to jump to conclusions. Anyone who has worked on campaigns knows what I'm talking about. Listening to you guys, it sounds like you think Republican events are all setups, but Democratic events just magically happen with no planning at all.

The reality is virtually EVERY campaign event is completely manufactured, and large parts of the crowds at these events are built: they don't show up spontaneously in the middle of a field for a press op at 10am.

Ah yes, the mythical family farm lost because of the "death tax". Reminds me of Reagan's mythical "welfare queen".

But it's got Death in the name..

If you oppose the Death Tax, then Terri Shaivo died in vain.

God that was funny.

I also think it's funny that people are so worried about Rudi. A Yankee cross-dressing womanizing baby killer is not quite the ticket for the fundies. They're still around, right?

plunge @ 11:01 AM--Thanks for a little voice of reason and experience. Everyone around here is full of opinions on politics, but I don't think many of them have actually ever worked on a campaign. All that matters, of course, is the opportunity to bash Giuliani. Whether the accusation has any foundation or merit is inconsequential.

I was wondering how long it would take for somone(Plunge) To say, Clinton did it to.

Tom: Over at TPM, Somerby apparently suggested this was a non-issue and that it would be unfair to blame Giuliani personally for this, since it was surely a staffer snafu.

Did Rudy fire, or at least reprimand, the staffer?

Did Rudy personally call to apologize?

Did Rudy try to reschedule the photo op?

If he did none of these things, then essentially Rudy adopted the staffer's actions as his own and he is responsible for them.

A leader is responsible for his staff and a leader rights the wrongs committed by those working on his behalf.

Rudy is not a leader.

Rudy is a self-serving jerk.

This "death tax" mantra is so much happy horses**t!!! This is money she will not earn for herself, so it should be treated just like winning the lottery.

I do have a few questions about the tax though.

Scenario 1: Mom & Pop have a farm worth $6mil.
The estate tax starts at $3mil (I don't know if this is right).
Do Mom & Pop pay the tax on the entire $6mil or only on the $3mil difference?

Scenario 2: Grandpa dies and has $10mil in the bank. He also has 10 grandkids and leaves $1mil to each.
Does the IRS tax the whole $10mil, or because
eash grandkid only recieved $1mil, is there no tax?

Perhap a few of your enlightened readers can answer these questions.

Some of ya'll need to be a little more realistic and a little less goofiily partisan. :)

It's perfectly possible that Guiliani's staff were especially misleading and rude and deserve especial condemnation (or conversely, it's possible that this particular family is just unreasonably foolish and emotional). I'm just pointing out that looking for events to help sell a political point, testing out possibilities, and nixing them, is something that happens everyday on a campaign no matter what the party. It would be hypocritical to pretend that its out of ordinary, and its also silly to think that there's something untoward about it in and of itself. That's what people were implying.

The fact that the death tax is a ruse, or that Guiliani's people were especially mean (which plays into the perception that he himself is an asshole) are all legitimate points.

I'm not Guiliani fan. I'm a former NYC "criminal" ferret owner as it happens. :)

Rudy should look for lottery winners and their heirs with tax issues.

That's where I have liked Edwards. He has done an effective job of speaking in language everyone clearly understands, how wrong this is. As he says to Southern whites, "You've been voting Republican for forty years now. What do you have to show for it?" No wonder he was the candidate Bush feared the most in '04.

Posted by: MaxGowan on May 10, 2007 at 10:40 PM

The Establishment power structure still fears Edwards, which is why they're trying to spin the Democratic race as strictly between Obama and Clinton. They figure at least their Ivy League law school buddies can hold the reins on those two.

"... you may actually see some 'family farms' touching the inheritance tax levels."

Remember that with minimally adequate planning, you double the estate tax exclusion. So IF it reverts back to $1 million in 2010 as the Bush Tax Cut plan provides, a farm would still have to be worth more than $2 million to draw estate tax in and of itself (regardless of other assets).

Also, liabilities offset value on the estate tax return, too.

AND the Republican'ts had the opportunity to lock in a $3 million exclusion when they last had the gavel and refused to do so, holding out for complete repeal. So any farm or "small" business worth less than $6 million would have been protected but for the greed of the rich.

Of course, one must never underestimate the greed of the rich-through-inheritance, or the overwhelming effect it seems to have on their political decisionmaking.

David, see my previous response re the farm worth $6 million. If hubby is willing to leave half to wifie, the $3 million exclusion each of them has will cover the whole farm. The "minimal planning" comes in because in some states, he must have a will leaving her half. A trust can be set up to keep her from leaving her half to second hubby, i.e. to keep it in the family. Most estate planning leaves everything above the exclusion to the spouse (frequently in trust to keep the spouse from frittering it away or giving it to the pool boy) so as to postpone all estate tax until the second death.

Tax is only paid on amounts ABOVE the exclusion, but as an ESTATE tax (as compared to an INHERITANCE tax) the amount is paid on the full amount above the exclusion, less debts and expenses, regardless of the number of people it is left to. Some state impose an inhertance tax of their own, on each heir rather than on the estate itself.

Plunge -

It isn't stories like this that make us think that Rudy is an asshole. We've known that for years.

We don't read this entry and say, "Oh my god! Did you see what Rudy did to that poor family in Iowa? He's such an asshole".

What actually happens is we read the blog, shake our heads and say, "Well, what did you expect from Rudy? He's an asshole, you know".

BIG difference.