A Woman with a Big Heart

Saturday (June 12), the Wall Street Journal did a piece on Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a potential candidate for President of the United States. That is difficult to write, after reading the article. I read it not once, but twice. Bachmann gave her opinions on the state of the economy, foreign military involvements, and the tax code. A trained tax attorney, Bachmann revealed a lot of opinions on taxes.

  Bachmann is ready to take the corporate tax rate from 35% down to 9%. She was silent on corporate tax loopholes and corporate tax expenditures. She loves the national sales tax idea (Fair Tax), but does not trust it to become the single tax. She thinks it would become a second tax. The sales tax is a regressive tax. It goes after the poor man’s dime. Here in Tennessee we would pay about 33% for a loaf of bread, when you combine the “fair tax” with our state sales tax. The bank president and the common laborer would pay the same 33% sales tax for their bread.

  She would “zero out” the capital gains tax. That would benefit the higher income people, as they do the most capital gaining. Great break for the wealthy. The mechanic with a wife and two children must pay the straight rate on his income, assuming he has no capital gains. 

   Bachmann would also “zero out” the alternate minimum tax. A loophole is a loophole is  a loophole. Maybe she thinks it is time for good Americans to start honoring their loopholes.

  Finally, it is time to “zero out” the estate tax, which she calls the death tax. Only the financially well-healed pay federal estate taxes. The current exemption is 5 million. I wonder if she thinks the estate tax is double taxation. Being a tax attorney with the IRS, surely she knows that much income over possibly many years would not be subject to any tax for high asset people. That is, according to the Bachmann plan. Again, another sweetener for the wealthy and near wealthy.

  After reading Rep. Bachmann’s proposals, it is easy to come away thinking; here is a woman with a big heart for the rich.