Consider the following two methods of getting money:
1. Work hard, and get paid for your work.
2. Have the exceptional good luck to be born as the child of a person who has a lot of money. Wait around for a while, and then get your share of that money.
If you get your money using method 1, you have to pay a significant portion of the money that you have earned in taxes. It’s what’s necessary to keep the country running, so that you’ll have a stable society in which finding work and doing work is possible.
If you get your money using method 2, well… there is a group of Republican senators who want to make sure that you don’t have to pay any taxes on that money at all.
Sure, you depend on the same social stability that other people do, a social stability that is enabled by taxes, but, if you have the good luck to get money through inheritance, the Republican senators listed below think that you need more good luck, and so want you to get a special exemption from paying your fair share to keep the country running.
Yesterday, they came together to introduce S. 1183, a bill to repeal taxes on the inheritance of multimillion dollar estates.
There is already an exemption from taxes on the inheritance of the small estates that typical working parents leave to their children. That’s not what S. 1183 is about. S. 1183 is about giving the children of millionaires and billionaires the right to continue to hoard money they didn’t earn, keeping it selfishly all to themselves, without supporting the nation that enables them to remain comfortably posh.
The names of these senators are:
Sen. John Thune (Republican-SD) — principal sponsor
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (Republican-NH)
Sen. John Barrasso (Republican-WY)
Sen. Roy Blunt (Republican-MO)
Sen. John Boozman (Republican-AR)
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Republican-GA)
Sen. Daniel Coats (Republican-IN)
Sen. John Cornyn (Republican-TX)
Sen. Michael Crapo (Republican-ID)
Sen. Michael Enzi (Republican-WY)
Sen. Deb Fischer (Republican-NE)
Sen. Jeff Flake (Republican-AZ)
Sen. Charles Grassley (Republican-IA)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (Republican-UT)
Sen. Dean Heller (Republican-NV)
Sen. James Inhofe (Republican-OK)
Sen. John Isakson (Republican-GA)
Sen. Mike Johanns (Republican-NE)
Sen. Mark Kirk (Republican-IL)
Sen. Mike Lee (Republican-UT)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (Republican-KY)
Sen. Jerry Moran (Republican-KS)
Sen. James Risch (Republican-ID)
Sen. Pat Roberts (Republican-KS)
Sen. Marco Rubio (Republican-FL)
Sen. Tim Scott (Republican-SC)
Sen. Richard Shelby (Republican-AL)
Sen. Patrick Toomey (Republican-PA)
Sen. David Vitter (Republican-LA)
