The threshold is ridiculously low. Most of these estates aren't in cash either. Small businesses. Farms. The family home. Often heirs need to SELL the enity to pay the taxes. It's like winning a car on a game show. Sounds great until they tell you backstage to come up with half for the IRS. In cash.
Democrats could give a crap about those people. Responsible people who worked hard, lived frugally and saved. Democrats care more for terrorists at gitmo than these people.
Estate Tax threshold: Estate Tax Exemption 2006-2008: $2 million 2009: $3.5 million 2010: Estate tax repealed 2011: Estate tax will come back unless Congress votes to extend the repeal.
If I had as much cash sitting on the sidelines as does Warren Buffet, I would too endorse Obama and help him raise money. Why? Because Obama's presidency would create investment opportunities not seen since the Great Depression.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain
"The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:184 "With respect to marine hospitals... such establishments have been made by the General Government in the several States,... a portion of seaman's wages is drawn for their support, and the government furnishes what is deficient." --Thomas Jefferson to James Ronaldson, 1813. ME 13:205 "This world abounds indeed with misery; to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another." --Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:441