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Does he think that them thar farmer folk are a bunch of red-neck rubes?
Sununu introduced himself as an engineer who had worked in small business and who had focused on paring down federal taxes and regulation. In particular, he railed on the estate tax, dubbed the "death tax," which he said put pressure on farmers to sell to developers.
I always love it when protectors of the rich try to scare farmers into voting for their schemes to keep the wealthy from paying their fair share. The "death tax" bogeyman is a common refrain among New Hampshire Republicans. Which is why I always keep this handy:
Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes.
When the Congressional Budget Office researched the issue in 2000, they discovered that 13 farms faced pressure from the estate tax. That's 13 out of all of the farms in the U.S. of A.
And if you don't want to believe me or the Center for Budget Priorities, then go to WaPo or FactCheck. Or know that the already very generous exemption on the tax will be increased to 3.5 million in 2009. For one person. Double it for a couple filing jointly. And what's more:
Michael J. Graetz, a professor at Yale Law School who was a tax policy official in the administration of President George Bush, said that repeal was primarily a benefit to people with large estates held in stocks and other securities, not to farmers. He also said that rather than repeal the tax, Congress should raise the threshold of exemptions. The image of a grieving heir packing up his belongings and trudging off is not an accurate one.
Federal estate tax affects a small number of farmers, but elimination would affect every farm in the country. And to quote Maria Cantwell, a U.S. senator from Washington:
"The lost revenue could be made up in three ways: through higher income taxes, reduced government services, or more borrowing, which would pass the burden of current government spending to future generations."
But what difference does reality make? Our junior senator engineer would rather frighten Grandma into thinking she might lose her family farm and 40 acres if she votes for Jeanne Shaheen.
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