Thursday, July 2, 2015

ARE YOU KIDDING ME RANT #4

    Yesterday morning, C-Span’s Washington Journal, a viewer call-in program, had Stephen Moore as a guest. A Libertarian economist, Moore has worked, at times, for the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. He founded the Club for Growth, but after being ousted, was accused of stealing the group’s mailing lists.

       At one point in his C-Span appearance, Moore railed against the inheritance tax. His father, he claimed, had put “sweat equity” into building a business for many decades and now, when he died, his estate would be taxed at a rate exceeding fifty percent. Surely, no sane human being would disagree with his (Moore’s) efforts to abolish this horrendous burden.
     Somehow, Moore failed to mention that the first $5,430,000 of any inheritance is currently exempt from federal taxation, or that a parent may gift $14,000 per year to each of his/her children without any tax consequences. But Moore, as it turns out, is a professional liar. In 2014, Moore responded to a Paul Krugman column, claiming that economic growth in low-tax states was superior to growth in high-tax states. Moore’s piece was first published in the Kansas City Star, but after some investigation, when the paper discovered that Moore’s figures were entirely bogus, the Star resolved never to publish him again.

      Yet, somehow, C-Span, in its endless quest to appear non-partisan, found him credible enough to give the man a forty-five minute platform.


      Are you kidding me?

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