The death tax is just as unfair to those who do not operate a business but have saved diligently all their lives. Inheritors will be forced to sell stocks, bonds, land, and even precious family heirlooms to pay the tax.
And what happens to all of this money — the proceeds from the family farms, the franchisees, the retail shops, the estates of small investors? It goes to fund the greatest pay-to-play scheme ever concocted. It rewards the welfare class, the union bosses, the trial lawyers, the crony capitalists, and the armies of lobbyists and community organizers who support the Democratic Party.
And for this, the entire middle class is to be ground into the dust. And the country as a whole will be condemned to generations of poverty and serfdom.
That is what is at stake in the current negotiations. Of course Obama is intransigent. He is determined to destroy the middle class and force them into dependency, where they will join the mushrooming welfare class — the 47 million on food stamps, the 23 million still looking for work, and the 100 million who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. He is far more concerned about renewing unemployment benefits than he is about creating jobs.
Obama’s idea of “saving” the middle class is extending unemployment benefits, increasing welfare payments to single moms, and boosting the earned income credit for low earners. That kind of assistance doesn’t save the middle class — it just turns them into welfare clients. But, of course, that’s the point. Move them out of the middle class and into dependency. And while you’re at it, make them actually believe you’re saving them.
Originally published at the American Thinker, under the title “‘Saving’ the Middle Class.