The Republican War on Children

The Republican War on Children
Under current law, a married couple’s estate pays no tax unless it’s worth more than $11 million, so
that only a handful of estates — around 5,500, or less than 0.2 percent of the total number of deaths a year — owe any tax at all.
That’s a total, thoroughly debunked myth: Each year only around 80 — eight-zero — small businesses and farms pay any estate tax at all.
By their actions, Republicans are showing that they consider it more important to give extra
millions to one already wealthy heir than to provide health care to a thousand children.
Would you be willing to take health care away from a thousand children with the bad luck to have been born into low-income families so
that you could give millions of extra dollars to just one wealthy heir?
Children who get adequate care are more likely to be healthier
and more productive when they become adults, which means that they’ll earn more and pay more in taxes.
Republicans like to claim that tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring economic growth,
but no serious economists agree — and that’s the case even for things like corporate tax cuts that might have some positive economic effect.
Then there’s the argument of Senator Chuck Grassley
that we need to eliminate estate taxes to reward those who don’t spend their money on “booze or women or movies.” Yes, indeed, letting the likes of Donald Trump Jr. inherit wealth tax-free is a reward for their fathers’ austere lifestyles.