Dear Editor:

They're at it again, President Clinton and his like-minded liberal Democrats, including Vice President Al Gore, refuse to give up their stranglehold on your wallet.

Mr. Clinton has vetoed the bill to alleviate the "death tax." This current unfair tax hits hard at the backbone of our economy: small business and family farms. Rather than be passed on to heirs, in thousands of cases these businesses or farms must be sold to pay the taxes when the owner dies.

For example, take a farmer who works hard all of his life, uses his blood, sweat and tears to pay for his farm. He does not have a high income and has no employer to help him contribute to retirement planning. His farm may be worth a million dollars at his death and under the current tax system his heirs would have to come up with roughly $140,000 to pay the tax. With callous indifference to the destructive nature of this tax, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore want to see this family taxed.

When a small business or farm is passed to family members, no profit is made, nothing has changed to add value to the situation. Why is the government entitled to a tax just because this person dies?

Another unfair tax enacted by Mr. Gore's party when they controlled the Congress in 1991, was the taxing of Social Security benefits of anyone making over $34,000 a year at an incredible 85%. That $34,000 a year is below the national average income but to Mr. Gore, this person is rich.

Maybe this is the Democrats' plan to save Social Security. Just tax it! How much sense does that make? You're taxed on the benefits when you receive them, after you've already been taxed at the time you've paid them in.

Luckily, reason has been shown by members of the current Republican Congress who have initiated legislation to reduce his tax to 50% despite this being a "risky scheme," as Mr. Gore has called it. This, at a time when the federal budget surplus is projected to be $2.17 trillion. Whoops, make that over $4 trillion; $2.17 trillion was last month!

The only thing "risky" is believing Mr. Gore's rhetoric so he can continue the growth of big government at our expense; so he can continue his justification for keeping our money because government knows better than we do how to spend it.

Eben David Henson
Danville


TOP | BACK