Arkansas Blog

Joyce Elliott for U.S. Senate, 2010

what was sen. lincoln [D-Wal-Mart]
thinking?

estate tax repeal is all about shifting
the tax burden to the folks in the middle
and at the bottom.

Same with Same sex marriage, she talks out of both side of her mouth. her pandering to billionaires is blatant and quite frankly her third way politics leaves Arkansans, holding the( BAG.) we really need a concerted effort to find and replace her at our next opportunity.her convoluted thinking is harming middle and lower class Arkansan;s taxpayers and the POOR. time for a change .

Ouch. Good thing this article won't change Blanche one bit. Her defense of the 22 or so Arkansas families who might possibly perhaps have some liability under this bill is admirable. Her resoluteness on this issue reminds me of GW Bush on the war in Iraq. Go Blance!

Isn't there a southeast Arkansas family farm for Blanche to consider? (Although of course if there is, she has more state real estate tax protection than I do with my vast estate. By my estimate, real estate taxes on farm land are about one-tenth what I pay. Does that mean that valuation for estate tax purposes are similar?)

Not a better example, not one, can be found of the relationship between campaign contributions and legislation. Not one.

she is nothing but a wal-mart whore

I'd support Bill Halter over her in 2010.....and I can't stand him

Why must workers and investors pay income taxes on their EARNED income while others pay nothing on their UNEARNED inheritance income?

Inheritance is nothing but private sector welfare.

People should always work for what they get.

The problem with this issue is that the right uses it to fan flames and the left does too. In reality the answer rests between the two. Blanche Lincoln has the position required to beat Bill Alexander in her first race. She isn't going to flip flop on that now. She didn't know any of the Waltons when she made her decision to support repeal of the estate tax. She knew ignorant farmers who (still) think the estate tax is a problem for them. Rather than opining from your ivory towers that Blanche Lincoln is some sort of patsy of the rich, why not look into the reality of the situation: Lincoln's position is one of necessity. The Democratic Party is too weak to message in Arkansas and only politicians who can build centrist coalitions can win. You put Joyce Elliott or Bill Halter up and they very well could (likely would) win the nomination - and then they would lose to almost any Republican including Jim Holt. Have it your way if you must, but I am sticking with Blanche Lincoln - one of THREE Democratic Senators in the South.

Blanche must go!

Blanche Lincoln's position is almost identical to David Pryor's position. The only difference is that no one was even close to repeal back in those days so it didn't matter. Blanche Lincoln is trapped in a state that votes for George Bush, thus she is forced to deal with the agenda they set in Washington. Nominate someone other than Blanche Lincoln at your own peril dear liberals.

Nominate someone other than Blanche Lincoln at your own peril dear liberals.

Posted by: Anonymous
Wonder what Company this DINO pipe organ lobbyist works for ???

On point and interesting . . . I talked to Mac Campbell at the unity rally this week (he was the only loser that showed up that I saw). I asked him what he would change if he could do it all over again and he said that the worst mistake he made was trying to distinguish his position on the estate tax from Lincoln's. What he said was very memorable to me. He said: "I should have kept my mouth shut; I said one thing and they wrote another - I just learned first hand that truth loses every time rage is selling newspapers - even if you are on their side."

LA Times??? What part of the State of California does she represent? This article was in the Los Angeles Times, wasn't it, and not the Lower Arkansas Times? So good to know that there is a news organization that has an interest in a legislator from Arkansas. Maybe the news organizations in Arkansas will keep us informed about news organizations in other states that try to inform us about ourselves.

Blanche is doing a great job, and the GOP will take her if you don't want her. Okay, maybe they already have.

Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR)
$750,449
Total farm subsidies from 1996-2004
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
$351,085

Poor old Delta, lots of poor black folks, shacks, poverty, shame. But not if you're the white folks that own the vast plantations. I'm not sure about Berry, but Blanche only gets 1/9th of all that farm subsidy money, it's not all from just one year and while a check for 10 thousand bucks is fun, you won't get rich off of it unless one arrives every day of your life.

If you'd like to spend a whole lot of time going around in circles, just try to Google up some info on big farms in the Delta. The owners have names like, Shortning Ag Inc, Shortstuff Ag Inc, Shortfield Ag Inc, Shortstop Ag Inc and Shortarm Ag Inc. Another vast plantation is divided equally, 8.3% each for a bunch of incorporated entities named after birds.

The subterfuge is amazing. Jimmy Hoffa could be farming in Arkansas or the big farms might all be owned by Dubai Ports World, for all we know. Is it all one big scam, who knows, but we all know if you're going to run a scam, you have to do everything you can to hide what you're doing. Can't scam in broad daylight now can you?

How do we know Blanche isn't already a billionaire? How much is her Daddy worth? it's sure plain to see why Blanche isn't a big fan of the Estate Tax or of reducing farm subsidies. At least all that makes sense. For me personally, it's all the other Republican views she embraces that fries my tators.

Like Air Huckabee, the voters never get to see all the connections, all the reasons, Blanche is Blanche. Does anyone really believe our folks go to Congress to look out for OUR interests? Do you own a farm? Do you have to worry about the Estate Tax? Do you lunch with the Waltons? When was the last time the government sent your family a check for 300 thousand for not growing rice?

Why are we electing people so vastly different from ourselves? And how's that working out for us? Will we ever get smarter? Blanche is betting we won't. Bush is betting we won't. Asa and Huck are betting we won't.

Before "they" put the fix in and making voting totally useless, us voters better start weeding out the bad weeds from government. Democrats need to reject those who are Democrats in name only. Mark Pryor voted with Bush 65% of the time, how Democrat is that?

And the Lincolns and Pryors of the world get away with it because we're too lazy to track what they do. John McCain appears to be a Democrat half the time, until you look at his extreme rightwing voting record. But us voters are just too lazy to do the home work and we wind up being fooled over and over and over. They bank on us continuing to be lazy so they can collect their free money and be reelected until their too old to travel.

If we aren't smarter, then we deserve the poor service we're getting. "fools and their Senate seat" wants us to stay dumb. He or she is bitching that the Democratic Party is so weak....poor baby, yet he or she wants us to continue voting for weak Democrats like Mark and Blanche. What's the point, just vote Republican in the first place and call it good.

We have to quit voting for Democrats who undermine their own party. We can send a warning shot across their bow this November, and we will.

Thank you for bringing Berry into your analysis DBI. His farm subsidy thing seesm to be a sham judging form the article in the DemGazette.
Well Max, think publishing this blog thread will get the "you're so partisan" finger pointers off your back for a while???

The reason Mac Campbell lost was that he is a jerk. He lost his temper on numerous occasions and went nuts. He has made some very disrepectful and rude comments. He exaggerated and lied about his background. That is why he lost. If he wants to try to lame make excuses, he can get ready for the truth.

Requiring everyone to pay taxes on their income including inheritance is not "liberal"....It's Democratic.

She knew ignorant farmers who (still) think the estate tax is a problem for them. Rather than opining from your ivory towers that Blanche Lincoln is some sort of patsy of the rich, why not look into the reality of the situation: Lincoln's position is one of necessity.

"ignorant farmers" may be a clever image, but most are multimillionaires, and as previous poster said hide under multiple fronts.

Yes Blainchee's position is a necessity for multimillionaires who desire to escape taxation. Unfortunately that class totally controls MS Ark media.
Thanks Max for AT.
_

EVERY poster on this subject so far are just plain theiving savages...worthles theiving savages...taking half of a persons assets whe they die is a horrible thing to do and you worthless f---- should be ashamed as should Mark Pryor...Senator Blanch Lincoln is commended for doing what's right and paying no attention to these THEIVING SAVAGES...

"taking half of a persons assets whe they die is a horrible thing to do and you worthless f---- should be ashamed as should Mark Pryor..."

Cool your jets there, fireball. Just trying to get a rise out of folks, obviously.

Again, the estate tax affects about 25+- families in the entire state. On top of that, with responsible estate planning you can avoid many, many penalties.

If you fall into the category of these bazillionaires, which I seriously doubt, then consult a tax attorney...sheesh.

Rosso...If this Death Tax affects ONE family in this state it is still stealing, theavery...and WRONG....you and the other posters are just preaching class envy...you know it and it shows in your posts...you look like fools. Stealing from a person after he dies is the wrong thing to preach if you think it will elect Democrats that will give you even more free s---. Keep it up..it's only helping the decent, real Americans. This DEATH TAX will be history some day and you can't stop that...Get over it.

"stealing, theavery...and WRONG...."

The same could be said of all income taxes then I suppose. Are you for ending all taxes?

This discussion makes throwing out the entire tax code and going to the 'FairTax' on consumption look more attractive every day.

And how is a tax on consumption fair? You are still taking earned money from people (stealing as crazy anon says). Consumption taxes are regressive. The only truly fair tax is an income tax. The problem is that if we only had one tax the rate would have to incredibly high.

The bottom-line is that we must pay for government. We must pay for roads. We must pay for education. We must pay for defense. We must pay for police....and the list goes on and on...

It's easy to just say taxes are bad or let's cut taxes. The hard part is deciding which roads or schools to close to pay for the tax cuts. All Republicans are doing is putting that decision off on future generations. Our free lunch (tax cuts) will be paid by our children.

Nope, income taxes will be the undoing of our State. The only tax that can legitimately tax OUT OF STATE AND OUT OF COUNTRY income is the sales tax. If you tax INCOME, you force businesses to go elsewhere. If you tax SALES, you tax all those out of state and out of country businesses who try to sell us their goods. The entire international tax system is set up to FAVOR sales taxes, over income taxes. Either our State and Country get this, or we will be left behind by NAFTA, GATT, and all the other treaties that favor international trade over local businesses.

There's a difference between a VAT (value added tax) and a sales tax. They are not the same.

"....you and the other posters are just preaching class envy..."

Right...RIGHT. It's a fancy time to preach "class"...CLASS?! Anyway, it seems that you, Mr. Anonypuss, are one of the fortunate sons...you know, never thought about paying taxes 'cause Daddy's companies did that for you..creatively, I might add? Or, or, or...the time you did it with that cow? I want to party with you, Lee Harvey...

Let me get this straight. Every time money changes hands the government has to get a piece of it? What don't you want to taX?

So, someone works hard and provides opportunities for other people and you think that when they die because they have lots of money or assets the government should take a big chunk? This is exactly why class envy doesn't work. Most people don't think that the company that they work for is evil and owes the government something for making a profit. The amount of money that anyone has is in direct relation to the amount and quality of service and opportunity that they or someone else were able to provide other people.

At what point does it become too onerous? If you believe that the government is better at using people's money than they are, then why don't you advocate taking more?

"Requiring everyone to pay taxes on their income including inheritance is not "liberal"....It's Democratic."
Okay? So, I work hard all my life, provide opportunities and a good product or service to the community, paying income, property, and sales tax along the way, and you think that I haven't paid enough? Somehow, my hard work belongs to someone other than the people I love and care for, who have cared for me in my old age? Somehow, that's fair?

What kind of incentive is that for me to create opportunities and provide a good product for the community?
That's just confiscatory.

Why is it that every time someone talks about a tax break someone else starts squawking about how to replace the revenue (that is raise taxes somewhere else)? They never ask how the taxpayer is going to replace the revenue when they're talking about raising taxes, though.

"Again, the estate tax affects about 25+- families in the entire state." Wow, thank you for illustrating your ignorance. There are thousands of families in this state who qualify for the death tax. I hope to be in that bracket one day. I just hope the death tax isn't around anymore. I work for myself and my kids, not the government or someone else who won't work for themselves or their family.

But, I thank you, again, for choosing the wrong side of the issue so that we can continue to dominate you in the polls.

Why must workers and investors pay income taxes on their EARNED income while others pay nothing on their UNEARNED inheritance income?

Inheritance is nothing but private sector welfare.

People should always work for what they get.

So you think that's a good response? Okay. Thanks for not answering the comments made at 3:13. I really appreciate your persistent envy. This will never be a winning issue for you. Please continue to stand by your position. It's so easy to beat people who are so out of touch and uneducated. I couldn't ask for more.

The asinine statement that inheritance is private sector welfare is ridiculous. So is charity and caring for our children and elderly. Aside from being a stupid comment, it's terrifying that someone could be such a bitter whiner. You actually think that people should be forced to care for others, but not be allowed to care for their loved ones.

I am so looking forward to the day we can vote that DINO bitch out of office. She is nothing but Janet Huckabee with a shave, a bath, and a tailored suit.