WASHINGTON - North Dakota's farmers and ranchers want the death tax repealed. Most Americans agree, which long has confounded the class warriors and so-called experts who support the tax. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., recently accused our organization of acting against the interests of North Dakotans. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Poll after poll, from Gallup to Bloomberg to CBS/New York Times to Pew to Rasmussen to Zogby, show that strong majorities of Americans continue to support repeal of the death tax. Last year, a Pollock-Luntz poll of voters in North Dakota and five other states found a stunning 85 percent support for completely eliminating or significantly reducing the tax.
With a very tight Senate vote expected next month, now is the time for North Dakota voters to make clear to Conrad and his colleague, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that they should side with the state's family farms and businesses. To do so, Conrad will have to stand up to the big money out-of-state interests who bankroll his campaigns: 94 percent of his funding comes from out of state, and his largest sources of PAC funding - having each contributed more than $1.3 million dollars - are labor unions and finance and insurance companies.
Read the whole thing.
Kent Conrad and Earl Pomeroy are both up for re-election this year. Both have been staunch opponents against efforts to repeal the estate tax.
Conrad, as Mr. Murray points out in his column, is heavily funded by out-of-state interests who favor the estate tax. Pomeroy himself, as his opponent for ND's House seat (Matt Mechtel) pointed out in an interview with me, heavily funded by New York Life Insurance:
Why is New York Life [Earl Pomeroy's] number one contributor? I can tell you exactly why New York Life Insurance Company is his number one contributor. The number one single contributor to Earl Pomeroy, their vested interest, is saying that the estate tax stays in place. The reason that is, is and I’ve had first hand experience in this, if you start a small business or have a farm here in North Dakota and you accumulate a certain amount of money and accumulate a certain net worth and you have family you want to pass it on to, especially in the case of a farmer, how are you going to pass it on. Say you’re that southeastern North Dakota farmer with 1500 acres that’s worth $2,000 an acre. So you have $3 million in land and you have two sons that want to farm and you’re going to die and the estate tax is going to come in and they’re going to want $1.5 million in taxes from you after you figure equipment and everything else. You’re going to have to sell the land to pay it unless you go out and you buy life insurance or you have your sons go purchase life insurance on you so at the time of your death the life insurance pays this out and basically that’s what, that’s why insurance companies are contributing to guys like Earl Pomeroy. They’ll fight to keep the estate tax to keep these places in business and it’s just wrong
Clearly, the estate tax issue puts both Conrad and Pomeroy between a rock and a hard place. North Dakotans want to see the tax repealed and they aren't having any of this "it would be a tax cut for the rich" nonsense. Conrad and Pomeroy's big-money, out-of-state sugardaddys want to keep the estate tax as is. So what are these guys going to do? Go with what their constituents want or what their out-of-state backers want?
I suspect that they'll try to find some middle ground. They'll advocate for "reform" (which is something they've done in the past) while leaving the basic structure of the estate tax in tact to please their money people.
Which is total nonsense. North Dakota's politicians are supposed to represent North Dakotans, not companies like New York Life.
Expect candidates Matt Mechtel and Dwight Grotberg (who is taking on Conrad this election cycle) to make a big issue out of the estate tax. As well they should.
(via Taking Back ND)