New York Times Calls for Lower Taxes
Did you catch the Times today? Drudge linked to an article breathlessly proclaiming the national tragedy of US citizens abroad renouncing their citizenship over taxes. Oh the horror! They begin the article by trotting out their sacrificial lamb, a former Marine, Californian (they’re US citizens?), mom, etc. who gave up her citizenship because of high US taxes. Huh?
Yep. She says she gave up her citizenship in the greatest country on the face of the earth because of the estate tax. An editor somewhere is in trouble for letting that little factoid pass. I thought that the estate tax was good because it only applied to the rich? Isn’t that what Nancy Pelosi and friends has been saying for the last six or so years?
This is the NY Times right? The NYT gives the indication that the number of people giving up their citizenship is back on its way to the high of over 2000 during the Viet Nam war. If you dig a little deeper into the article you see that there have been only 509 renunciations so far this year. For those of you who don’t do math in public that’s about a quarter, ¼, 25% of what the high was. Are you kidding me? Oh I see a little further down, it’s Bush’s fault. It seems that GWB signed a law increasing taxes on the wealthy living outside of the country. No wonder we can’t get Alec Baldwin to leave.
The rest of the article is about two things. First, about how there are long waits to give up your citizenry at our embassies. Could this have anything to do with the budget cuts of foreign expenditures in 2002? See the democrats were screaming about escalating military budgets so the President made some judicious cuts elsewhere in the budget. In 2002 we were aggressively pursuing those responsible for planning, conducting and giving aid to those who attacked our country the previous fall. One of the areas to get cut was in foreign expenditures. With fewer employees, the embassies are taking longer to process the requests. But you don’t read that in the NYT article.
Second is the argument that overall the number of renunciations is DOWN. That’s right, the old gray lady argues that even though the actual number of renunciations is down, because the wait is longer there must be a whole lot more that are going unreported. That too must be Bush’s fault.
Apparently this all started in 1996 because there was a wave of rich people who left the US because of confiscatory tax policies. Who was president in 1996? William Jefferson Blythe Clinton I believe. I could be wrong. Nope, I’m right again. Who pledged to make sure that the rich paid their “fair” share of taxes then signed the largest tax increase in US history? Slick Willie did. So, because Bush signed a law increasing the tax on Americans living abroad earning over $82,000 a year, it’s all his fault. I see. More liberal logic.
The telling point of the article however is that people are turning in their passports because they FEAR higher tax rates. Why would they fear higher rates? I haven’t heard the president call for tax increases. Have you? Could it be that they fear the Democrats with Pelosi, Reid, Obama, et al are salivating at the prospect of putting forth every tax increase that they can think of? I think you know the answer to that one. The truthful answer to that question will not be on any page of the New York Times.
Yep. She says she gave up her citizenship in the greatest country on the face of the earth because of the estate tax. An editor somewhere is in trouble for letting that little factoid pass. I thought that the estate tax was good because it only applied to the rich? Isn’t that what Nancy Pelosi and friends has been saying for the last six or so years?
This is the NY Times right? The NYT gives the indication that the number of people giving up their citizenship is back on its way to the high of over 2000 during the Viet Nam war. If you dig a little deeper into the article you see that there have been only 509 renunciations so far this year. For those of you who don’t do math in public that’s about a quarter, ¼, 25% of what the high was. Are you kidding me? Oh I see a little further down, it’s Bush’s fault. It seems that GWB signed a law increasing taxes on the wealthy living outside of the country. No wonder we can’t get Alec Baldwin to leave.
The rest of the article is about two things. First, about how there are long waits to give up your citizenry at our embassies. Could this have anything to do with the budget cuts of foreign expenditures in 2002? See the democrats were screaming about escalating military budgets so the President made some judicious cuts elsewhere in the budget. In 2002 we were aggressively pursuing those responsible for planning, conducting and giving aid to those who attacked our country the previous fall. One of the areas to get cut was in foreign expenditures. With fewer employees, the embassies are taking longer to process the requests. But you don’t read that in the NYT article.
Second is the argument that overall the number of renunciations is DOWN. That’s right, the old gray lady argues that even though the actual number of renunciations is down, because the wait is longer there must be a whole lot more that are going unreported. That too must be Bush’s fault.
Apparently this all started in 1996 because there was a wave of rich people who left the US because of confiscatory tax policies. Who was president in 1996? William Jefferson Blythe Clinton I believe. I could be wrong. Nope, I’m right again. Who pledged to make sure that the rich paid their “fair” share of taxes then signed the largest tax increase in US history? Slick Willie did. So, because Bush signed a law increasing the tax on Americans living abroad earning over $82,000 a year, it’s all his fault. I see. More liberal logic.
The telling point of the article however is that people are turning in their passports because they FEAR higher tax rates. Why would they fear higher rates? I haven’t heard the president call for tax increases. Have you? Could it be that they fear the Democrats with Pelosi, Reid, Obama, et al are salivating at the prospect of putting forth every tax increase that they can think of? I think you know the answer to that one. The truthful answer to that question will not be on any page of the New York Times.
Labels: Politics
posted by Moneyman at 2:09 PM
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