I had to explain to a woman in the grocery store that the estate tax doesn't hurt poor people

[Hello_Kitty]

I walked over to the store to pick up a few items for dinner and while I was perusing the prepared salads in the deli section a couple standing nearby spotted my C-SPAN canvas tote (yes I'm a dork). We got into a brief discussion about politics and I learned that the woman had volunteered for the Arizona Republicans in the last election. She said she really liked John McCain but was mad at him because he had promised her a job but here she was, still unemployed, after having done all that volunteering for him and the Republicans. It was obvious from some of the other subjects we discussed that I was dealing with a fairly low information voter, despite her recent political activity. She asked me if I thought the tax bill was going to pass and I said it probably would.

She was most upset about the estate tax. First off, she thought the rate was being raised to 55%. But then she said something that made my jaw drop. "Why do they have to go after dead people's estates? Why can't they go after RICH people?" I reassured her that the estate tax being reinstated did, in fact, affect rich people and only rich people. She looked genuinely surprised at this. "I was told it went after poor people's money."

Wonder who told her that.

[Mz Pip]

1. I don't know too many

poor people who have multi-million dollar estates.

The lack of critical thinking skills in some people is astonishing.

[Speck Tater]

2. The people only know what the owners of the media want them to know. nt

[CTyankee]

3. I had that same conversation with a young man, just out of the service.

He was working his way thru community college and had no money. I asked him if he believed that if he died his new wife would have to pay "death taxes." He said "yes." I then told him about the exclusion of $3.5 million ($7 million for married couples). He said he didn't know that...

[dkf]

10. No it falls down to $1 million. $3.5 was Obama's proposal but that wasn't passed.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. My understanding is that the exemption goes to $5 million under the compromise. eom

[doc03]

16. I attended a retirement and estate planning class a few months

ago and from what I remember that there were tricks you could do with your finances to shelter much more than the limit. I think the limit of $5 million will in reality be much more than that.

[pnwmom]

23. Don't believe everything you hear in those classes. Plenty of people

have been taken by shucksters and various plans to avoid taxes. It IS possible, however, for a married couple to exempt $2 million by combining their individual exemptions in a trust. If the first person dies, however, before a trust is set up, then the exemption is back to a million.

[Hannah Bell]

34. it's also possible to exclude the majority of your estate by setting up foundations for your

kids to run & be paid exhorbitant salaries by.

[Yupster]

19. You are correct

The compromise raises the exemption to $ 5 million. Without the compromise it would have been $ 1 million.

I think that $ 5 million is a reasonable level.

[ProudDad]

25. Yeah, that poor top 1% needs all the help they can get...

:puke:

[pnwmom]

22. Right. If the compromise passes. Otherwise, it'll be $1 mil. n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

30. It will pass. eom

[dkf]

31. Yes that is the New plan but the Dems are trying to cut it down.

Who knows.

[CTyankee]

38. My story happened a few years ago, during the Bush Administration.

I relate it because it shows how penetrating the "death tax" voodoo worked for the republicans in convincing people that it was a threat to the ordinary citizen.

[thecrow]

17. THAT's why they call it the "death tax".

So everybody would think that everbody had to pay it when they die.

I dread what we are going to have to endure with the incoming Congress.

[sakabatou]

4. Most people are misinformed about so many things.

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. Old story.

It ain't what you know that hurts you.
It ain't what you don't know that hurts you.
It's what you know for sure, that ain't so, that hurts you.

[elleng]

6. No surprise, but awful actually to see/hear it.

:-(

[Angry Dragon]

7. I just do not understand how people can be misinformed

when they listen to the fair and balanced news 24/7

[Juche]

8. I really admire the right in some ways

They've created an army of tens of millions of people who are grossly misinformed on a very basic level. Misinformed, overly emotional people are easy to control and direct. Keep them misinformed about economics and angry about blacks/mexicans/welfare long enough to vote in the plutocrats.

Not that liberals are perfect, but I haven't seen the kinds of jaw dropping ignorance and misinformation among liberals that I see among tea partiers.

A woman I know thought an estate of $20,000 was going to be taxed.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. The estate tax lie is so entrenched a lot of Dems have been bamboozled by it.

Back in '06 I was working on a campaign and had to explain to a volunteer phonebanker that the $50K life insurance policy she wanted to leave to her grandkids was exempt from the estate tax. It didn't help that the candidate we were working for was Harry Mitchell, a Dem who was against the estate tax.

[Very_Boring_Name]

14. Conservatives are absolutely brilliant at controlling the message

They really do have to be given credit for that. They can take a complex issue like climate change and say "Look how cold it is today! That proves global warming is a myth!" and it's totally believable even to normally reasonably intelligent people. Liberals, on the other hand, suffer when they're forced to use fact based, complex arguments that take more than 10 seconds to explain, and people just tune out. Humans have a tendency to believe whichever is easier to understand, and conservatives have capitalized on this.

[glitch]

9. "Ignorance Will Kill You." - Randall Robinson nt

[progressoid]

12. AM radio, Fox News, RW chain emails.

They have been lied to for so long, that they are far removed from reality.

[KillCapitalism]

15. Uhh, poor people don't have estates.

My uncle that just recently passed away only had $52 in his checking account & that was all of his assets. I don't think the govt. would waste their time going after a percentage of that $52.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Wait... C-SPAN has canvas totes?

Shit, I'm there.

[Hello_Kitty]

21. They gave a bunch to our state party.

Probably because they felt sorry for us.

[TheKentuckian]

20. I had to explain this to my mother. The bigger knot was probate being tied up with it.

I'm not sure why this particular misinformation is so deeply seeded. It's almost like some instinctual reaction to having one's corpse looted or something.

[snooper2]

24. Why does everyone have to learn shit at a grocery store?

Doesn't anybody talk at the tire shop anymore? :eyes:

[Hello_Kitty]

28. Actually, I got into an interesting discussion about credit default swaps at the Big O last year.

So you can learn things there too. :)

[Arctic Dave]

26. Because the rich people (billionaires) said it would affect poor people (millionaires)

See, they weren't lied to.

[ProudDad]

27. It sounds like she was one of those "moderate republicans"

Seriously...

Here in the new Mississippi, Arizona, the REAL republicans don't give a shit about poor people...

They just want no taxes, no "Mexicans" (of any kind) and all the guns they can carry concealed...

[Hello_Kitty]

29. I got the sense she was very religious.

Like she read all the New Testament stuff about Jesus caring for the poor and took it to heart. My theory is she thinks the GOP is the Christian party. So she goes to volunteer for them and they push propaganda that paints Democrats as Hollywood/New York wealthy elitists who want to steal money from hard working poor people and hand it to gay atheist illegal immigrant abortionists.

[Liquorice]

32. Democrats really have to do a better job of explaining things. Republicans

are great at lying and disseminating those lies. Most democratic leaders are terrible at getting the truth out there and are equally bad at combating the lies of the right-wing. It's very frustrating.

[defendandprotect]

33. Just more proof that lying right wing propaganda works ....

[subterranean]

35. Someone posted a poll here recently that was taken before the election.

The poll asked people to rate how much importance they placed on various issues in the election. About 56 percent said reducing the estate tax was "very important" to them. It just goes to show how widespread the ignorance is.

[MilesColtrane]

36. "Wonder who told her that."

Could it be....SATAN?!

[kath]

37. Teh STOOPID! It burns!