Do The Super Rich Have Enough Representation In The Senate? Let's Ask Jon Kyl And Blanche Lincoln

Blanche Lincoln, the disgraceful senator from WalMart

This morning Christiane Amanpour managed to slip a few unscripted words in between the mindless babble on CNN about iPods and the great debate about who initiated the "touch" between Michelle Obama and the Queen of England. She reminded viewers that the economic crisis the leaders of the G-20 are in London to discuss doesn't only impact the wealthy but also impacts-- usually more essentially and critically-- the poor. But the poor are rarely on the minds of callow and craven U.S. senators existing primarily to service the wishes of the wealthy contributors who finance their lifelong, quite lucrative, political careers. And today's NY Times ran a chilling editorial-- very bipartisan-- about how that devotion to the very wealthy corrupts our entire system, economically and politically.

The editorial focuses on one Democrat and one Republican, both well known in Washington as patsies for big bucks donors and their special interests. By any objective standard, they are two of the absolute worst members of Congress: Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR). And while the budget debate is raging and the nation is focussing on "recession, rising unemployment and surging foreclosures, runaway health care costs and diminishing insurance coverage," Kyl and Lincoln, as usual, have a very different idea of what needs to be addressed most urgently. "[T]he most pressing issue is clear: America’s wealthiest families need help. Now."

The two senators plan to propose an amendment to deeply cut estate taxes for the fraction of the top 1 percent of the population still subject to those levies.

The proverbial millionaires next door-- the plumbers, contractors and accountants who amass substantial wealth through hard work and modest living-- are not the intended beneficiaries of the proposed cut. The Obama budget already takes care of them, because it retains today’s law, which imposes the estate tax only on couples with property worth more than $7 million, or individuals with property worth more than $3.5 million. That means 99.8 percent of estates will never-- ever-- pay a penny of estate tax.

The heirs of the remaining 0.2 percent of estates are who Ms. Lincoln and Mr. Kyl are so worried about. Their amendment would increase to $10 million the level at which the estate tax kicks in. It would also lower the top estate-tax rate to 35 percent from 45 percent.

With all the serious work before Congress, it is a colossal waste of time to have to rebut the false claims and warped premises of ardent estate-tax cutters. Ms. Lincoln’s and Mr. Kyl’s colleagues in the Senate should make short work of it and move on to urgent matters.

In addition to creating the false impression that the estate tax eventually hits everyone-- by mislabeling it a “death tax”-- opponents routinely denounce the 45 percent top tax rate as confiscatory. In fact, the rate applies only to the portion of the estate that exceeds the exemption. As a result, even estates worth more than $20 million end up paying only about 20 percent in taxes.

Another misleading argument is that the estate tax represents double taxation. In truth, much of the wealth that is taxed at death has never been taxed before. That’s because such wealth is often accrued in the form of capital gains on stocks, real estate and other investments. Capital gains are not taxed until an asset is sold. Obviously, if someone dies owning an asset, he or she never sold it and thus never paid tax on the gain.

Kyl, of course, is just an ideologically consistent whore for all the monied interests. He is, after all, a far right Republican. The nearly $25 million in campaign contributions he's managed to scoop up includes "donations" from all the worst special interests he slavishly serves, from Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, rip-off artists disguised as bankers, the investment industry, lobbyists, to HMOs and the real estate industry. The infamous finance/insurance/real estate sector alone has poured over $4 million into his disgraceful career.

Blanche Lincoln, though nominally a Democrat, serves many of the same special interests, accounting for the bizarre worn out carpet from her perch in the Senate across the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber, where she votes with the GOP more than almost any other Democrat. It's a joke in Washington that Blanche Lincoln doesn't represent Arkansas' working families in any way; instead she is the Walton family's personal senator. And, in fact, her hysteria over this estate tax legislation is 100% about the WalMart heirs who the sleazy and corrupt Lincoln caters to. Arkansas is one of the worst off states in the country-- and they have, after Louisiana, the dysfunctional democracy anywhere. Last year not a single member of Arkansas' substandard congressional delegation had a challenger-- neither a primary challenger nor a general election challenger. Friends of mine in Arkansas tell me that it;s just hopeless and everyone knows it. Regardless of party, WalMart owns the whole state and all its politicians. Lincoln is just the worst of a really bad lot. Looks like the Washington Post editorial board is as enthusiastic about the Lincoln-Kyle axis of evil as everyone else is outside the Walton family.