Walden tax plan winners: The super rich. Inheritors. Billionaires.
Walden tax plan losers: Middle class Oregonians.
Greg Walden is stuck in a bad place. His GOP colleagues are put him on the wrong side on health care, and now taxes.
[NOTE: I don't think Greg Walden actually likes what is happening to him. He used to be a moderate. He is stuck supporting policies he may not actually favor, policies demanded by an immoderate GOP caucus. He isn't the leader. He is being led. It is unfortunate for him, and I sympathize, but he did put himself in that position.]
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| Very, very bad press for Walden. Click. |
GOP TAX WINNERS. The GOP tax proposal made a big winner of inheritors of serious, intergenerational money. The "Estate Tax" or "Death Tax" is a tax on estates of greater than $5.49 million dollars per person, or $10.98 million per married couple. The tax rate is 40% on the amounts above that.
If this group includes you, congratulations.
There are ways to game the system so even if you have that much money your heirs won't pay the tax. I know. It was part of my work as an Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley to show people the ways.
The estate tax is an effort to raise money and reduce the tendency toward aristocracy, through dynastic intergenerational wealth. The GOP tax plan eliminates the tax on estates of all sizes. Nice for the kids of billionaires.
GOP TAX LOSERS. The big loser is the Oregon's middle class and upper middle class workers. Some of these are people who earn good incomes from having good jobs. Physicians. Accountants. It includes most two-income families. But the tax hike is not just for the financially comfortable. It includes couples with incomes down to $75,000 a year. Your single-mother nurse. Your waitress married to a truck driver.
Walden just made their taxes go up another 3.9%.
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| Walden supported this tax plan. Yikes. |
Even two income couples making $75,000 a year will pay an extra $1,200 in federal taxes. The GOP Plan ends the deduction of state taxes from federal taxes. Oregonians will pay federal taxes on money they don't get.
This is a conscious transfer from blue states to red states. Fox and Friends hosts chortle about it. The GOP caucus sees it as the just rewards of having a GOP House. Money goes from states like California and Oregon to Alabama. That'll teach those liberals.
Oregon's Governor Kate Brown is sending him letters of protest. Her likely Republican opponent Knute Buehler is no fool. He, too, is protesting. Republicans cannot defend Walden. Democrats are delighted to criticize him.
Walden is not silent because he is suicidal. He is silent because he is trapped. He has to stick with his team if he is going to stay in leadership.
In his safe red seat, the only person who could defeat Greg Walden is Greg Walden himself.
1 comment:
This points to a crucial issue for the district. I think it can be shown that Walden has coasted for a good part of his tenure by inflating whatever benefits he brought to constituents and giving lip service to cultural issues. It can be shown his words and actions are inconsistent.
In a larger sense, Democrats have a problem shaking the notion that they neglect the working class in favor of the underserving poor. Republicans care less for working class folks but have no problem pandering to their fears. Fox news is diabolical in it's ability to castigate Democrats on straw man issues. People who chose cultural issues over economic self-interest ("Regressives") will reward a Walden for tacitly agreeing with their prejudices and it's entirely likely they will never realize their pockets are being picked in the meantime.
It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to see through this deception, but so far no matter what Democrats prove with facts, supported by reality, doesn't shake this fundamentally class/race divisiveness.
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