Brenda wrote: > > I meant to ask this before....where do you live? New York City
> I'm in southern California and I've heard no mention of the estate tax in races out > here. A conservative political group sent fliers to voters in Minnesota with a picture of a tombstone on it and the message that Paul Wellstone not only wants to tax you to death now, he wants to tax you in the hereafter. They were sent before Paul Wellstone died, so it wasn't deliberately ghoulish on their part, but even if he hadn't died, it bugs me the way conservatives try to scare people with that "Democrats want big government, they'll tax you to death" idea. The government quadrupled under Reagan, and it's growing again under Bush, and at some point higher taxes are going to pay for that. Why are people still falling for such untrue garbage from the Republicans? Then a few days ago, my clock radio alarm woke me up and the first thing I heard was a political ad talking about the death tax and how the big bad Democrats don't want to repeal it. Obviously those big bad Democrats want to tax everyone to death. Those weren't the exact words but that's how it sounded. This is such a liberal place I was very surprised that was used in anyone's campaign, and I was so annoyed I don't even know who the candidate was. Bush has mentioned the death tax often and it's part of the party's agenda so it's hard to believe it's not being used by all Republican campaigners, especially in the places where Bush is making appearances, although it's probably not a main issue for all of them. In Bush's state of the union addresses, and even in the formal party platform for 2000 it's referred to as the "death tax", never the estate tax, probably because some voters might realize they don't have an estate and so the tax just might not apply to them. But death is going to get us all, so there ya go, it becomes the death tax. It's just one little issue, but it's so dishonest it makes me angrily crabby or crabbily angry... whatever it's called, it's not very pleasant. Debra Shea
