Death Tax Gets New Life

Michele Bachmann | January 13, 2009 2:57 PM

Democrat leadership in Congress and President-Elect Barack Obama have made it perfectly clear that they are dead set on renewing the Death Tax rather than letting it expire in 2010.

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal does a nice job detailing the ins-and-outs of the death tax and it's impact on the struggling middle-class businesses that Obama and the Democrats say they want to protect.

Democrats want to make the current death tax rate of 45% permanent, and while the Democrats like to portray the tax as targeted to those super-wealthy folks like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, that is simply not the case. According the WSJ piece:

"The death tax strikes most heavily at small- and medium-sized family-owned businesses that generate the majority of new American jobs. So hitting these family businesses with a multimillion dollar tax bill when the owner dies won't help job creation."

I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 205, the Death Tax Repeal Act, just reintroduced in the House. Don't let the them fool you with their messaging -- this tax isn't about the wealthy. It impacts family farms and businesses -- the lifeline of Main Street that is vital to a healthy economy. With the economy in such a fragile state, renewing this tax will continue to hamper the economic prospects of our nation. Let's let the death tax die, once and for all.