Farmers, the estate tax, and another GOP talking point that no longer works

July 11, 2005

To hear Republican lawmakers tell it, the estate tax needs to be completely eliminated, immediately, to help protect the thousands of family farmers. It’s has nothing to do with lavishing more tax breaks on multi-millionaires, they say, only those hard-working planters and cultivators who help keep food on our tables.

Like so much of the GOP rhetoric surrounding the estate tax, it turns out this claim has no basis in reality.

The number of farms on which estate tax is owed when the owners die has fallen by 82 percent since 2000, to just 300 farms, as Congress has more than doubled the threshold at which the tax applies, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released last week.

All but 27 farmers left enough liquid assets to pay taxes owed, the budget office found, although it hinted that the actual number might be zero. […]

President Bush, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association have asserted that the estate tax is destroying family farms. None, however, have cited a case of a farm lost to estate taxes, although in June 2001 Mr. Bush said he had talked to such farmers.

Indeed, he has. Now might be a good time for the president to mention the names of some of these farmers, or maybe, just maybe, we’ll begin to wonder if perhaps Bush was just making them up to make a political point.

Also remember, a full repeal of the estate tax is due to come up in the Senate this month, after already having passed the House. If Republicans are successful, that will be another $25 billion in tax cuts, all of which will be added to the deficit, and all of which will exclusively benefit America’s ultra-wealthy.

Is there any chance the Congressional Budget Office report might sway a few lawmakers away from such folly? I’m not optimistic.

Neil E. Harl, an economics professor at Iowa State University whose expertise in estate tax planning for farmers has made him a household name in the grain belt, said many Americans had a false impression that the estate tax was destroying family farming.

He said the Congressional study “adds to the weight of the evidence that this is a myth that has been well spun.”

And in 2005, that’s all that matters.

Unfortunately, the talking point will still be used and will still work. Reality demonstrates it is a lie, but that won’t stop the right wing nuts from saying it nor will it stop the media from relaying it faithfully.

  • Like so much of the GOP rhetoric surrounding the estate tax, it turns out this claim has no basis in reality.

    Due respect, CB, but that sentence works just as well if you take out the words “surrounding the estate tax” and replace it with anything else.

  • I looked up the facts years ago, when local radio
    talk show hosts in Idaho ripped into the estate tax,
    and implied little farmers with 6 acres and a couple
    of goats wouldn’t be able to pass them on to their
    heirs. I wrote to the hosts, quoted them the actual
    facts and tax laws, and they simply didn’t care. They ignored me.

    The facts are even worse than what CB has found, because farms and small businesses were given double
    the exemption of ordinary folks, and 14 years to pay
    the tax, at a special, low interest rate. How could
    any business person fail to plan around such liberal
    terms?

    To compound the outrage of it all, had there been
    a real problem for farmers and small business
    owners, reform could have targeted these
    victims, but of course, in America, where common
    sense has become extinct, and the people so gullible
    that they never question the propaganda coming
    from the Republicans, no one bothered to bring this
    to the attention of the legislators.

    My question is: if Republicans can be so effective
    spreading lies, why can’t we be effective spreading
    the truth?

  • Excellent question hark.

    There are so many lies out there that the Dems could get the word out by basing their next campaign around the idea that, “If you vote Republican and you’re worth less than a million bucks then you’re a big, fat sucker.”

    Of course, they don’t have the nerve to do that, but just think of how much fun it would be!

  • Cut taxes, raise spending. What are these people thinking? Do they even care that they are bankrupting America? To make matters even worse there will be some Democrats also voting for this. Now you tell me why?

  • People don’t vote their economic self-interest. The truth does not banish the lies. Democrats have been spreading the “truth” for a while, and it hasn’t worked.

    The trick wouldn’t be to say, “hey, these guys are lying about the farmers.”

    Better: “Republicans are exploiting American farmers to eliminate a tax on the wealthy to support the same greedy individuals who are shipping our jobs overseas. They are betraying the trust of the American People.â€?

    Better-yet: have something for the farmers and worry about the farmers before it’s politically important. By using farmers, Republicans are shifting the frame to an area where Democrats have no comfort zone (or seem not to, at least). Similar to using religion.

    Try reading George Lakoff, particularly “Don’t Think of an Elephant”, for a great and easy read on why “truth spreading” doesn’t work.

  • An interesting talking point from Mark Shields:

    The federal income tax and inheritance tax — the same one Bush and DeLay are now committed to repealing — were passed by Congress to pay for the Civil War and became law under the signature of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

  • “If you vote Republican and you’re worth less than a million bucks then you’re a big, fat sucker.”

    That ought to be the ONLY Democratic campaign statement — in every single Congresional district. Repeated over and over and over again, in every conceivable medium.

    According to CNN there are about 2.5 million millionaires in the US. I’m sure nearly every one is already voting Republican, so no loss there.

  • Why do so many Americans vote against their economic
    self interests? That’s the great mystery of the
    last quarter century. Why do the downtrodden vote
    for the rich, who exploit them, dump on them, and
    then steal from them?

    I got this second hand, so I can’t verify it.
    But I was told David Brooks, the new resident
    conservative columnist for the New York Times,
    William Safire’s replacement, had this to say
    shortly after Gore lost to Bush in 2000:
    because they don’t know they’re downtrodden.
    He reached this conclusion after spending time
    in a working class Pennsylvania community, based
    on the results of interviews with the people.

    Something to think about.

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