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Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Bush, Blacks, and the Estate Tax
Fantastic op-ed article from William Spriggs, chairman of the economics department at Howard University and former executive director at the National Urban League, on the chutzpah President Bush displayed urging help in repealing the estate tax in front of the NAACP. Spriggs finds Bush's tactics insulting, and pulls no punches in suggesting so:
There's a sense of pandering in his tactic of identifying a prominent black, Robert L. Johnson, who is wealthy and who supports repealing the estate tax, and then pretending that the group of intelligent, educated blacks in the room before him doesn't know about the budget choices repealing the estate tax would entail. It is disturbing, to say the least...
...It's too easy to mention Robert Johnson and then not have to mention the facts of wealth inequality or the budgetary impacts of estate tax repeal.
It is a disturbing disconnect that the president would talk about the difficulty his party has in reaching blacks — and then give an economic example that benefits no blacks, at the cost of great benefit to programs that serve blacks well.
The full article is worth a read
Sacramento Bee: Bush, Blacks, and the Estate Tax
Posted by Adam Hughes
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