Democrats who see virtue in the estate tax are doing the equivalent of aborting future enterprises. They deprive businesses of oxygen with their support for capital gains taxes and disregard for contracts.
Amity Shlaes
All those predictions about how much economic growth will be created by this, all of those new jobs, would be created by the things we wanted - the extension of unemployment insurance and middle class tax cuts. An estate tax for millionaires adds exactly zero jobs. A tax cut for billionaires - virtually none.
Anthony Weiner
I favor the abolition of all Social Security, Medicare and estate taxes. In their place, we should create a simple income tax system that has no deductions or credits at all.
Ari Fleischer
In 2010 the U.S. will have a payroll tax rate increase, an estate tax increase, and income tax increases. There's also a tax increase coming in 2010 on carried interest. This rate will rise from its current level of 15 percent to 35 percent, and then it will rise again in 2011.
Arthur Laffer
If we completely repealed the estate tax, it would provide an estimated $32 billion tax break for the Walton family - the founders of Wal-Mart.
Bernie Sanders
Me and my dad are the biggest promoters of an estate tax in the US. It's not a popular position.
Bill Gates
Longevity, for a columnist, is a simple proposition: Once you start, you don't stop. You do it until you die or can no longer put a sentence together. It has always been my intention to die at my desk, although my most cherished ambition is to outlive the estate tax.
Charles Krauthammer
Between income taxes and employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, we're being taxed to death.
Chuck Norris
On the estate tax, if you look at the couple of groups who are the biggest advocates for repealing the estate tax, it really is the pass-through business, and it's the farmers.
Gary Cohn
Gary Cohn doesn't care about the estate tax, I can guarantee you. I can guarantee you.
Many people are smart enough to know how to manage themselves out of the estate tax.
The real estate lobby has prominent allies in both parties. After the last major overhaul of the tax code, in 1986 - under a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, a Republican Senate and a Democratic House - it was a Democrat, Bill Clinton, who signed legislation that restored lost real estate tax breaks seven years later.
James B. Stewart
It is no secret that our tax code is drastically outdated and burdensome to all Americans. Fortunately, more and more people are aware daily of the inequities that arise from things such as the estate tax, and it has come to the forefront of Congress' agenda.
Jeff Miller
Repealing the estate tax won't create jobs, it won't boost GDP, and it won't add efficiency to the market. Instead, repealing the estate tax will simply add to the debt, hurt our ability to build a stronger economy and worsen economic inequality.
John Delaney
There is no tax policy that better describes how out of touch America's liberals are with the rest of the country than the estate tax. According to the Left, government seizure of a large share of the wealth of an American taxpayer is a moral imperative that serves social justice. Most Americans disagree, big time.
Kevin Hassett
If you want to help the poor, help the poor, and with your own time and money. Liberals prefer to do it with someone else's, which is why they love the estate tax.
The estate tax punishes years of hard work and robs families of part of their heritage by imposing a huge penalty on inheritance after death - a tax on money that has already been taxed.
Mike Fitzpatrick
I don't want to get into the 'who's a hostage-taker' discussion here, but what is the estate tax? It's a double tax on death. Economists will tell you that it's really not a tax that soaks the rich, but it's a tax on capital that deprives business investment and therefore job creation.
Paul Ryan
If no estate tax is imposed, capital gains taxes can be avoided indefinitely.
Richard Thaler
I don't like the repeal of the estate tax.
Stanley Druckenmiller
Many small business owners want to pass their family legacy on to their kids and grandkids, but they are turned over to vulture funds because the family may be asset rich but lacks the cash to pay the estate taxes. I have met people who literally sold the farm to pay the taxes.
I do not believe that the top rate should be lowered for individuals who are making more than $1 million a year. I don't think there's any need to eliminate the estate tax.
I support exemptions from the estate tax to ensure that when Maine farm owners die, their families will be able to continue to farm the land that they have protected and lived on, often for generations.
