Democrats wage war against family farmers and small business owners
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-business-6019bbf1969016cbd2749b213ba47a08
As tax changes loom, farmers worry about the next generation
By Tim Grant
SHARPSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Michael Kovach got into the farming business 13 years ago with the purchase of a 107-acre farm in Mercer County after retiring from the oil and gas industry at 39.
“I’ve worked too hard on this piece of ground to really even consider the thought of it turning into anything other than what it is and getting better than what it is,” said Mr. Kovach, 52, owner of Walnut Hill Farm in Sharpsville.
He has two full-time employees who help him raise grass-fed livestock such as Angus cattle, lambs and chickens, which are sold direct to consumers at the farm. His wife, Karen, runs the farm stand.
Mr. Kovach bought the farm hoping to one day pass the mantle of ownership to his daughter, who is 17. Now he and and other family farmers across the state worry how changes in the tax law could impact their plans to transfer their farms from one generation to the next.
President Joe Biden has proposed tax changes in order to pay for the American Families Plan, which provides government benefits and tax breaks for middle- and lower-income people.
The proposal that’s garnered the highest profile in the business community has been Mr. Biden’s plan to raise the 21% corporate tax rate that has been in place since 2018. He’s proposed changing it to 28%, which is targeted at the largest corporations, some of which effectively pay no income tax on billions in revenue.
Small-business owners are most concerned about increased taxes on capital gains — profits on the sale of assets — and on inherited wealth. Mr. Biden’s plan calls for nearly doubling the top tax rate on capital gains and eliminating a significant tax benefit on appreciated assets known as the “step-up in basis.” The combined tax rate increase could add up to 61% on inherited wealth.
For example, if someone dies after starting a business decades ago that’s now worth $100 million, under the current tax law, the business would pass to family members with no capital gains tax because the cost basis of the business is stepped-up to its current value at death.
Under Mr. Biden’s plan, the heirs would immediately owe a capital gains tax of $42.96 million based on the capital gains rate of 39.6%, plus the net investment income tax of 3.8%, minus the $1 million estate tax exemption. The proposal would reduce the estate tax exemption from $11.7 million to $1 million.
If the estate tax remains unchanged, the family would also pay an estate tax of 40% on $57.04 million of the remaining assets. Including exemptions, the estate tax would amount to $18.13 million.
The combined federal estate tax and capital gains tax liability would total $61.1 million on the heirs’ original $100 million inheritance. That’s without including state capital gains and estate taxes.
“That’s a really important thing if I’m the daughter of a business owner and I want to inherit stock in my family’s company,” said Elizabeth “Li” Connolly, a partner at the Connolly Steel accounting firm in Avalon. “Me, as a regular person, could be theoretically not targeted by this, but it’s going to affect everyone in a negative way.”
Dividend payouts and stock buybacks
The tax proposal most closely tied to the larger economic recovery is the corporate tax hike that could go from 21% to as much as 28%, although negotiations are ongoing, and media sources have reported Mr. Biden floating the idea of a minimum corporate tax of 15%.
Prior to the corporate rate being reduced in 2018 by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, corporations paid a tax rate as high as 35%.
Pennsylvania State Treasurer Stacy Garrity said she has met with small-business leaders across the state who are interested in expanding their companies but are holding back due to the uncertainty of tax changes.
Pennsylvania has 1.1 million small businesses, which Ms. Garrity said make up 99.6% of all businesses in the state.
She said owners of farms in rural Pennsylvania are particularly worried about a capital gains tax hike.
More than 8% of U.S. adults have at least $1 million in assets, according to the Global Wealth Report 2020 by Credit Suisse. That comes out to slightly more than 20 million Americans.
The Pennsylvania Farmers Union has 300 members, all of whom are owners of family farms. The national farmers organization has 200,000 members.
“Some of these farmers have had these farms in their families for generations, and now, if they go to pass on the farm to the next generation, anything over $1 million they would have to pay that capital gains tax on it,” Ms. Garrity said.
Farm operator households usually have more wealth than the average U.S. household because they own significant capital assets, such as farmland and equipment necessary to run a farm. In 2019, the average farm household had $1,042,855 in wealth, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Gus Faucher, chief economist at Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group, said the bank is waiting to have a better sense of what’s likely to get through Congress before incorporating the tax increases into its forecast.
But on the surface, he said, it’s not likely to have a significant impact on economic growth.
“We saw very little change in growth when the corporate income tax cuts were passed under the Trump administration in 2017,” Mr. Faucher said. “There was a modest growth pickup in business fixed investment following passage of the tax cuts, but that faded in 2019.
“Mostly the impact of the corporate income tax cut was to increase dividend payouts to shareholders and boost stock prices, with little impact on the real economy. Therefore, I would expect a very small negative economic impact from the proposed Biden tax cuts.”
‘Tax is a price’
A tax increase of a few percentage points can be absorbed by most profitable companies.
“If they know what the tax rate is, over a period of months they will adjust to it,” said Robert Fragasso, chairman and CEO of Fragasso Financial Advisors, Downtown. “They will adjust just like we do in our homes and our personal finances. We adjust to changes in pricing. Tax is a price. It’s part of what corporations pay to do business.
“You could argue that corporations spend too much money on this or that or pay people too much at the top,” he said. “That’s just financial management. But taxes in and of themselves is neither good nor bad. It’s how they are applied to the business. I’m not advocating for higher taxes. But we do have to pay for what we’re spending.”
Mr. Fragasso, whose company manages nearly $2 billion for clients, said lawmakers could get a false impression of how much corporations are making without taking into consideration that profitability varies from year to year, and responsible company managers put money aside for unforeseen events that will impact their future.
“That’s what we do,” he said. “A legislator could look at us and say, ‘Tax them more because they are a rich company’ when in fact we set it aside for the future to hedge the unexpected or to use to grow the company and create more employment.”
Ms. Connolly noted that nothing is carved in stone yet.
“Over the years, I don’t get worked up about anything until I see it signed into law because there’s going to be a lot of changes,” she said.
“Everything right now is still speculation because there’s going to be a lot of negotiation as part of this.”
VIDEO: Democrat Impeachment Managers lay out case to impeach fellow Democrats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNMtyoSibG4
YouTube channel The Right Brothers: DESTROYING Hypocritical Democrat Politicians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tZkBhB07Cc
Why did Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats dress up as slave traders?
Here’s a photograph to prove that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats dressed up as slave traders: Source
USA Today wrote of this:
“We rate the claim that kente cloth was historically worn by the Asante people of Ghana, who were involved in the West African slave trade TRUE because it is supported by our research.”
Why did Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats dress up as slave traders?
A conservative black woman schools a white liberal woman on history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5HGMs5XL6k
David J Harris Jr.: Racism has never been an issue for me to achieve my goals. Racism is being used as an excuse for mental enslavement. Racism has been used by the Democrat party to control blacks. Who are the real racists?
https://twitter.com/DavidJHarrisJr/status/1270394796989964292
John Nolte: The Left’s Eating Itself. Let them Fight.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/05/nolte-the-lefts-eating-itself-let-them-fight/
The Left’s Eating Itself. Let them Fight.
By John Nolte
June 5, 2020
Last weekend hundreds of people came out in my little town to protest the tragic death of George Floyd. This protest took place less than three miles from my house. Want to know how I found out about it? Well, because it was perfectly peaceful and didn’t involve firebombs and rioting, I found out about it four days later in my local paper.
Hundreds came out in my little town! Hundreds. It was mostly students from the Alma Mater I dropped out of, but still… Hundreds! And not a peep of unrest. Just Americans being Americans.
You see, that’s how we roll out here in Rural America. While the stupid Democrats who vote for Democrats stress and worry about another round of looting and burning this weekend in their Democrat-run cities, all I’m worried about is the weather. I got grass to cut … on my tractor mower … the one with the bourgeois cup holder.
If Democrats want to riot in Democrat-run cities, what the hell do I care? How does this affect me? I’m not responsible for it. I didn’t vote for it. Hell, if it weren’t for my job, I’d hardly be paying attention.
Blue on blue violence is not my problem. The left eating itself is not my problem. In fact, the only feeling all this mayhem emits from me — and I’m not terribly proud of this — is a twinge of smug satisfaction in the form of Toldjaso.
The moment Barack Obama embraced and legitimized the left-wing terrorists in Occupy Wall Street (that have now morphed into Antifa and Black Lives Matter), I toldjaso. The moment Obama and the corporate media embraced the Trayvon Martin, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, and Baltimore hoaxes, I toldjaso. I saw the writing on the wall and got the hell out of Los Angeles in 2011.
The left is eating itself.
Watching conservatives stress over this baffles me.
As the meme goes Let them fight.
I can understand the stress if you’re a Republican living in a Democrat-run city, but you need to get out. It’s just that simple… You need to get out. Unfortunately, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better — but they will get better, just like things got better after all the unrest of the 60s.
Eventually, even Democrats will sue for peace by voting for a Rudy Giuliani, because all this baloney about social justice is just the Democrat Party reverting to the soft-on-crime party that imploded in 1972.
Relax.
Sit back.
You get what you vote for and Democrats voted for this.
Sorry, but it’s a waste of time to care about people more than they care about themselves.
I’m certainly not happy about what’s happening. It just it what it is. So…
Let them fight.
It gets better…
As though my Toldjaso Cup has not runneth over enough already these past ten days, the New York Times is embroiled in a civil war. On Thursday, a fight broke out between the aging liberals and the young fascists, and the fascists won — the blacklisters won.
Let them fight.
What the hell do I care if the New York Times blacklists opinion? I haven’t been a serious consumer of the Times in over a decade. There’s a ton of alternate media out there, tons of places for Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to publish an op-ed.
This isn’t the end of the world. This isn’t the end of free speech. This is one more step in the total disintegration of a far-left news outlet, and that pleases me to no end.
This is not just happening at the Times. It’s also happening at *teehee* the far-left Variety, where the left ate its own editor-in-chief, Claudia Eller. You’re gunna love why… Her groveling We’re Not Diverse Enough confession was not groveling enough.
Fourteen months ago, Eller was accepting awards from something called the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and today she got cancelled by her own.
Last night, while the monsters Eller helped create ran around the Twitters with her head on pig pole, I was LOL’n watching my Jeffersons DVDs.
The left eating itself is not my problem.
Over the past few days, the left just canceled the very face of the most left-wing television show of the last 20 years, Glee. To be honest, I took no pleasure in watching her get picked apart in front of the whole world. It was beyond revolting. Still…
Let them fight.
And now we’ve arrived at Defund the police!
Oh, yes, please do…
Please do defund the police in Democrat-run cities…
This I gotta see.
Good people need to get out of the cities.
All of us need to get out of the left’s way.
Regardless of what the media are trying to portray it as, this is nothing close to a nationwide movement or revolution. Rather, it’s a bubbled temper tantrum unfurling in a few dozen deep blue bubbles.
Let them fight.
Blue Collar Logic channel at YouTube: “Name me a riot in recent decades that has broken out in a Republican controlled town”
I recommend watching this entire 7 minute video.
My favorite part is at 3:45, when he says:
“Name me a riot in recent decades that has broken out in a Republican controlled town.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBugfEBbEC0
Karlyn Borysenko: After attending a Trump rally, I realized Democrats are not ready for 2020. I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years, but my experience made me realize just how out of touch my party is with the country at large
After Attending a Trump Rally, I Realized Democrats Are Not Ready For 2020
I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years, but my experience made me realize just how out of touch my party is with the country at large
By Karlyn Borysenko
February 11, 2020
I think those of us on the left need to take a long look in the mirror and have an honest conversation about what’s going on.
If you had told me three years ago that I would ever attend a Donald Trump rally, I would have laughed and assured you that was never going to happen. Heck, if you had told me I would do it three months ago, I probably would have done the same thing. So, how did I find myself among 11,000-plus Trump supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire? Believe it or not, it all started with knitting.
You might not think of the knitting world as a particularly political community, but you’d be wrong. Many knitters are active in social justice communities and love to discuss the revolutionary role knitters have played in our culture. I started noticing this about a year ago, particularly on Instagram. I knit as a way to relax and escape the drama of real life, not to further engage with it. But it was impossible to ignore after roving gangs of online social justice warriors started going after anyone in the knitting community who was not lockstep in their ideology. Knitting stars on Instagram were bullied and mobbed by hundreds of people for seemingly innocuous offenses. One man got mobbed so badly that he had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the hospital on suicide watch. Many things were not right about the hatred, and witnessing the vitriol coming from those I had aligned myself with politically was a massive wake-up call.
You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.
But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them.
That turned out not to be the case. The more voices outside the left that I listened to, the more I realized that these were not bad people. They were not racists, nazis, or white supremacists. We had differences of opinions on social and economic issues, but a difference of opinion does not make your opponent inherently evil. And they could justify their opinions using arguments, rather than the shouting and ranting I saw coming from my side of the aisle.
I started to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the #WalkAway movement. I had heard about #WalkAway when MSNBC told me it was fake and a bunch of Russian bots. But then I started to meet real people who had been Democrats and made the decision to leave because they could not stand the way the left was behaving. I watched town halls they held with different minority communities (all available in their entirety on YouTube), and I saw sane, rational discussion from people of all different races, backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. I joined the Facebook group for the community and saw stories popping up daily of people sharing why they are leaving the Democratic Party. This wasn’t fake. These people are not Russian bots. Moreover, it felt like a breath of fresh air. There was not universal agreement in this group — some were Trump supporters, some weren’t — but they talked and shared their perspective without shouting or rage or trying to cancel each other.
I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?
And the biggest question of all was this: Did I hate Trump so much that I wanted to see my country fail just to spite him and everyone who voted for him?
Fast-forward to the New Hampshire primary, and we have all the politicians running around the state making their case. I’ve seen almost every Democratic candidate in person and noticed that their messages were almost universally one of doom and gloom, not only focusing on the obvious disagreements with Donald Trump, but also making sure to emphasize that the country is a horribly racist place.
Now, I do believe there are very real issues when it comes to race that we as a society have yet to reckon with. I believe that everyone from every background of every gender should have equal access to opportunities, and that no one is inherently more or less valuable or worthy than anyone else. And while the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to a tragedy precipitated by real racists and real nazis and real white supremacists, I started to see that those labels simply don’t apply to most people who support Trump.
But with all of this, I was still reticent to even consider attending a Trump event. I do not believe that Trump’s attitude is worthy of the highest office in the land. I abhor his Twitter. I am vehemently opposed to so many of his policies. But still, I wanted to see for myself.
I’m not going to lie, I was nervous, so I thought I would start my day in familiar territory: at an MSNBC live show that was taking place a few blocks away from the rally. I decided to wear my red hat that looks like a Trump hat but with one small difference — it says “Make Speech Free Again”—as my small protest against cancel culture. I even got a photo with MSNBC host Ari Melber while I was wearing it, just for kicks.
The funny thing about that hat is that it’s completely open to interpretation. When I wear it around left-leaning people, they think I’m talking about the right. When I wear it around right-leaning folks, they think I’m talking about the left. It’s a stark reminder of how much our own perspectives and biases play into how we view the world.
In chatting with the folks at the taping, I casually said that I was thinking about going over to the Trump rally. The first reaction they had was a genuine fear for my safety. I had never seen people I didn’t know so passionately urge me to avoid all those people. One woman told me that those people were the lowest of the low. Another man told me that he had gone to one of Trump’s rallies in the past and had been the target of harassment by large muscle-bound men. Another woman offered me her pepper spray. I assured them all that I thought I would be fine and that I would get the heck out of dodge if I got nervous.
What they didn’t know is that they weren’t the only ones I had heard from who were afraid. Some of my more right-leaning friends online expressed genuine fear at my going, but not because they were afraid of the attendees. They were afraid of people on the left violently attacking attendees. This was one day after a man had run his car through a Republican voter registration tent in Florida, and there was a genuine fear that there would be a repeat, or that antifa would bus people up from Boston for it. Just as I had assured those on the left, I told them I thought I would be fine, because we don’t really have antifa in New Hampshire.
But I’m not going to say it didn’t get to me a bit. When everyone around you is nervous for your safety, it’s hard not to question if they have a point. But it also made me more determined to see it through, because it was a stark reminder that both sides view each other exactly the same way. They are both afraid of the other side and what they are capable of. I couldn’t help but think that if they could just see the world through the lens of the other for a moment or two, it would be a stark revelation that they don’t know as much as they think they do.
So, I headed over an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open—which was four hours before Trump was set to take the stage—and the line already stretched a mile away from the entrance to the arena. As I waited, I chatted with the folks around me. And contrary to all the fears expressed, they were so nice. I was not harassed or intimidated, and I was never in fear of my safety even for a moment. These were average, everyday people. They were veterans, schoolteachers, and small business owners who had come from all over the place for the thrill of attending this rally. They were upbeat and excited. In chatting, I even let it slip that I was a Democrat. The reaction: “Good for you! Welcome!”
Once we got inside, the atmosphere was jubilant. It was more like attending a rock concert than a political rally. People were genuinely enjoying themselves. Some were even dancing to music being played over the loudspeakers. It was so different than any other political event I had ever attended. Even the energy around Barack Obama in 2008 didn’t feel like this.
I had attended an event with all the Democratic contenders just two days prior in exactly the same arena, and the contrast was stark. First, Trump completely filled the arena all the way up to the top. Even with every major Democratic candidate in attendance the other night, and the campaigns giving away free tickets, the Democrats did not do that. With Trump, every single person was unified around a singular goal. With the Democrats, the audience booed over candidates they didn’t like and got into literal shouting matches with each other. With Trump, there was a genuinely optimistic view of the future. With the Democrats, it was doom and gloom. With Trump, there was a genuine feeling of pride of being an American. With the Democrats, they emphasized that the country was a racist place from top to bottom.
Now, Trump is always going to present the best case he can. And yes, he lies. This is provable. But the strength of this rally wasn’t about the facts and figures. It was a group of people who felt like they had someone in their corner, who would fight for them. Some people say, “Well, obviously they’re having a great time. They’re in a cult.” I don’t think that’s true. The reality is that many people I spoke to do disagree with Trump on things. They don’t always like his attitude. They wish he wouldn’t tweet so much. People who are in cults don’t question their leaders. The people I spoke with did, but the pros in their eyes far outweighed the cons. They don’t love him because they think he’s perfect. They love him despite his flaws, because they believe he has their back.
As I left the rally—walking past thousands of people who were watching it on a giant monitor outside the arena because they couldn’t get in—I knew there was no way Trump would lose in November. Absolutely no way. I truly believe that it doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate: Trump is going to trounce them. If you don’t believe me, attend one of his rallies and see for yourself. Don’t worry, they really won’t hurt you.
Today, I voted in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary for Pete Buttigieg. I genuinely feel that Pete would be great for this country, and maybe he’ll have his opportunity in the future. But tomorrow, I’ll be changing my voter registration from Democrat to Independent and walking away from the party I’ve spent the past 20 years in to sit in the middle for a while. There are extremes in both parties that I am uncomfortable with, but I also fundamentally believe that most people on both sides are good, decent human beings who want the best for the country and have dramatic disagreements on how to get there. But until we start seeing each other as human beings, there will be no bridging the divide. I refuse to be a part of the divisiveness any longer. I refuse to hate people I don’t know simply because they choose to vote for someone else. If we’re going to heal the country, we have to start taking steps toward one another rather than away.
I think the Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens, because they’re existing in an echo chamber that is not reflective of the broader reality. I hope it’s a wake-up call that causes them to take a long look in the mirror and really ask themselves how they got here. Maybe then they’ll start listening. I tend to doubt it, but I can hope.
Gillum, Nelson teams object to tossing non US citizen voter ballot during PB County vote counting circus
Gillum, Nelson teams object to tossing non US citizen voter ballot during PB County vote counting circus
November 10, 2018
Attorneys for Senator-elect Rick Scott, the National Republican Senate Committee and the Republican Party of Palm Beach County descended on Palm Beach County’s Supervisor of Elections office on Friday night to oversee the vote counting that could decide the outcome of key Florida races.
Democratic candidates Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum have their own team of attorneys watching the canvassing board closely, looking for anything that could change the result of the elections and snatch the Senate and Gubernatorial wins from exiting Governor Rick Scott and newly elected Governor Ron DeSantis. Apparently, that includes counting non-U.S. citizens’ votes.
Among the crowd of dedicated observers who remained past midnight was Michael Barnett, the chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. Barnett sent BizPac Review part of the transcript from the proceedings showing attorneys for both Gillum and Nelson objecting to tossing out a non-citizen vote.
Susan Bucher, the election supervisor of Palm Beach County, rightfully called the ballot as “not counted,” but not without objection from both Gillum and Nelson’s attorneys.
If Democrats had any brains, they’d nominate Bill Maher for President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaC1-U8LIY0
Democrats are the party of slavery, segregation, and the KKK
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/10/the-democrats-are-the-party-of-slavery-segregation-and-the-kkk/
Democrats are the party of slavery, segregation, and the KKK
July 10, 2015
As we watch the Confederate flag being brought down in South Carolina (and being brought up by Nancy Pelosi, in a characteristically cynical and underhanded ploy), it’s worth taking a look at the racist history of the Democratic Party. They own that stupid flag, which is why they keep trying to pin it on the Republicans.
Courtesy of the great Bill Whittle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wz_0utCrm0
Ahhh, facts. Lefties hate those things!
Yeah, the Great Party Switch of the 1960s is horsecrap. The Democrats have always been the party of racism. Now they’re just better at lying about it.
The Civil War was just a dress rehearsal. Now the Democrats have figured out how to really tear America apart.
Way to go Bernie Sanders!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-may-22-2016-sanders/
“Frankly, what the Democratic Party is about is people running around to rich people’s homes and raising obscene sums of money from wealthy people.”
– Bernie Sanders, May 22, 2016
“I Vote Against You”- excellent six minute video by Pat Condell
I love this guy’s videos, and this is one of the best ones that he has ever done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjYLWadz5Yc
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 