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Bury
the Death Tax
(
January
27, 2003
)
In
“Bury the Death Tax” I argued that Virginia
needs to repeal its inheritance tax if it wants to
stimulate an entrepreneurial economy. If anyone
agreed with my analysis in “Bury the Death Tax,”
I didn’t hear from them. But backers of the tax
gave me a piece of their mind.
-JAB
I
am tired of your reactionary ranting. Please
take me off your e-mail list. I disagree with most
of what you post, and think it would be a shame for Virginia
to make the serious mistake that the federal
government will be making with respect to the estate
tax. The policy will have the effect of creating a
permanent aristocracy that will have no need to
work. (And it worked so well for Great
Britain!)
Bill Fisher
Vienna
Do you really think
entrepreneurs check the inheritance tax laws before
locating their new business? Do you think these
risk-takers are really planning their own deaths
when they launch? And don't you think that
other taxes, like the income tax, would be
more of a deterrent?
Why should I support repealing the death tax? I don't stand
to inherit any significant money any time during my
life. I have always wondered why earned income
is treated so shabbily compared to income from
dividends, inheritance, etc.
Phillip
E. Perdue
Richmond
spacejaunte@yahoo.com
Your Death Tax position is
ridiculous – and this opinion comes from someone
who is trying to figure out how to keep together a
small family farm located where the city has grown
up around it. There is a simple solution: Set
the exempt portion at $2 million, index it to the
CPI, and apply tax only to portions above that
amount. That would not unreasonably penalize
small personal estates and would apply only to the
substantial amounts being passed down to those who
did nothing to earn it.
Why are
heirs supposedly "entitled" to the
proceeds of a parent's estate if they did nothing to
create it? Sounds like you are proposing to
enable a "landed gentry," which my
4th-grade Virginia
history course identified as a crucial reason for
the rise of our country and the subsequent demise of
European societies. Perhaps government is not
the most efficient means of recycling wealth into
our economy. However,
if history teaches any one principle, it’s that
those who receive great wealth, having made no
personal investment, squander both the wealth and
their lives. As John Smith stipulated for the
new society nearly 400 years ago (paraphrased):
"If you don't contribute to the planting,
howing and harvesting, you won't contribute to the
eating."
I am completely mystified as to the continued call
for repeal of tax on inheritances. How can anyone in
good faith make the case that it does not distinctly
favor the wealthiest persons of our state? It is
contrary to the American society that our
ancestors envisioned, especially the founder of my
place of higher education, the University
of Virginia
(which I attended in the 70s when it was still
affordable enough to be considered a true
"public" university).
Thanks for your column. I appreciate the
viewpoints and subjects.
Larry
Dickenson
Roanoke
LarryD@branch-associates.com
Hidden
Agenda
Paul Goldman is a terrific political analyst and I
thoroughly enjoy his thoughtful and insightful
columns. However, he is missing the point when he
argues in "Hidden Agenda" (January 20, 2003)
that we need to preserve the Commonwealth's
constitutional restriction against consecutive terms
for our governor.
Joshua Lief has made all of the right arguments for
consecutive terms in "Four
Years Are Not Enough" (January 2003),
so I will not repeat his comments. I will, however,
point out that Paul argues for the merits of
competition from his perspective as a political
campaign consultant. In this case, I fear that his
perspective may have blinded him to the urgent need
for a firm hand on the policy tiller in the state.
Many analysts have pointed out the need for
structural reform of Virginia's
tax structure and budget process. Almost everyone
agrees that we are approaching a true crisis in
uncontrolled suburban sprawl and transportation
gridlock. And there is almost unanimous agreement
that firm action is required to preserve an
excellent system of higher education which is
teetering on the brink of mediocrity. I could go on,
but I think I have made my point.
Just who is going to perform all of these Herculean
tasks? A General Assembly which meets about two
months a year to consider 2,000 to 3,000 separate
bills in the legislative equivalent of a maelstrom?
A governor who has two and a half years at best to
get his arms around a large and unwieldy bureaucracy
before he becomes the lamest of ducks?
Finally, why have 49 of the 50 states in these
United
States
decided that their chief
executives should have the opportunity to serve more
than one term? I have always thought it best to
reconsider your path when everyone but you has taken
another. I think that it is high time that we
Virginians think seriously about allowing our
governors to compete for a second term. Yes, Paul, I
said compete.
Terry Nyhous
Warrenton
terrysteam900@aol.com
Public
Ivys in Jeopardy
Thank you for writing that article
(“Public Ivys in Jeopardy,” January
13, 2002
).
Your rationale is compelling and your story of
personal family struggle to help their youngsters
achieve a higher education is familiar.
Back in the 1960s and 70s when my dad
(Emory & Henry class of ’29) served as the
Chamber’s executive in Marion, and my mother
taught in the public schools, they struggled to help
me begin with the community college and then at VA
Tech. Now as a father of 7- and 10-year-old
youngsters, my wife and I look forward to some day
soon helping our kids with their higher education
– hopefully in the commonwealth’s system of
public higher education. We hope that our children
will have choices for their higher education
commensurate with their abilities and interests, and
we believe with appropriate financial planning on
our part, that these choices will be adequate.
But I can also relate to your position
on privatization in a very personal way. Should
Virginians sit by ambivalently while several of the
commonwealth’s prominent public universities
migrate to private institutions, my kids’ choices
will be dramatically reduced. Such a scenario of my
kids’ loss will be repeated thousands of times
across the state, and ultimately my kids’ loss
will be symbolic of Virginia’s
loss.
N. Charles Peterson
Dean, Workforce Development
J. Sargeant
Reynolds
Community College
Richmond
cpeterson@jsr.vccs.edu
Shake
‘em Up!
I
enjoyed your piece on cutting public school budgets,
but I am still waiting to see someone with kids in
public school take that position. The parents always
want more, and then they want their friends and
neighbors to kick in for extras. I wonder how I
would have done walking the streets of Watertown,
Conn.,
(where I went to Taft), asking the locals to
contribute to support the athletic program.
You
say, "There is no denying the necessity for
vibrant public schools." Oh, yes, there is.
Public schools exist due to inertia from the 19th
century and the melting pot anachronism. They are
not a 21st-century concept. The best thing that
could happen to education is to make all schools
private. The government should be involved only at
the margins, as with other public necessities like
food, shelter, and health care. If the teachers'
unions don't like vouchers, think what they'd make
of this idea. I get a warm buzz just imagining how
upset they'd be.
Bill
McCarter
Rumson,
N.J.
vze2h2n3@verizon.net
Much
of your article on K-12 education (Shake ‘em Up!,
January 6, 2003) is thought provoking and on target.
But your suggestion that the state could reduce its
share to education funding by $200M disregards the
state's own studies which show that it does not
fully fund its existing obligation by the Standards
of Quality (SOQ) for which localities have made up
the difference. I encourage you to get a copy of
JLARC's report on education funding which was
released 14-15 months ago.
Anthony H. Griffin
Fairfax
tony.griffin@fairfaxcounty.gov
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