Monday, October 3, 2016
Rep. Kristi Noem: My father's tragic death and Hillary Clinton's plan to tax the 1 percent
You don’t forget moments like this – the ones that
come so unexpectedly, shoving a pit into your stomach. I was
21-years-old and nearing the due date for my husband Bryon and my first
baby. That’s when the phone call came: “Kristi, your dad is stuck in a
grain bin.” I knew instantly what it meant.
By the time I got to the farm, neighbors and friends had taken payloaders and ripped down the grain bin trying to find my dad. When they finally did, our neighbors started doing CPR until the EMTs took over. I followed the ambulance to the hospital with my family and the doctors fought to save him for hours. Nothing worked. That night, we lost my dad – this man who had seemed invincible to me.
Not too long after the accident, while we were still trying to pick up the pieces, our family received a letter from the IRS. Because of this tragedy, one that undermined our sense of security, the death tax was now about to undermine our financial security.
I could see that we had land that my dad started buying in high school and land my grandpa had bought decades before that. We had cattle and the machinery needed to farm the land and care for the cattle. But we didn’t have enough money in the bank to pay what the IRS was asking.
That’s why he got up at the crack of dawn almost every morning. He wanted to give us the opportunity to farm together, if we wanted to.
We needed the machinery to continue the operation and
I could hear my dad’s voice telling me that selling land wasn’t an
option either. After all, I can’t tell you how many times he said:
“Don’t ever sell land. God isn’t making any more.”
To keep our family’s American Dream going, we were fortunate enough to get a loan, albeit one so large that it impacted nearly every decision we made for a decade.
I have never understood why the federal government thought it was appropriate to go after families with this double tax – especially in a time of crisis. My family had already paid taxes on the equipment, the land, and any other assets. Now, we had to pay taxes on it again because my dad had died. It’s not right.
This month, Hillary Clinton proposed a dramatic 65 percent increase to the death tax, pushing it to the highest point since 1981. She justifies this as a tax on the 1 percent, but all too often it is small businesses and family farms that are put into jeopardy for a few days’ worth of government spending.
Earlier this fall, the House Ways and Means Committee offered a blueprint for tax reform designed to grow families’ paychecks, the workforce, and the American economy. In doing so, we worked to shrink the tax burden for every family and streamline the tax code to make it more simple and fair. This includes eliminating damaging add-on taxes – most notably, the death tax.
No family should have to go through what ours did. Clinton’s proposal is a tax on the American Dream during a time of tragedy. Hardworking Americans deserve better.
Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) was first elected to serve as South Dakota’s lone Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. She was re-elected to a third term in the House in 2014. She currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. Kristi is also a wife, mother, experienced rancher, farmer and small business owner.
By the time I got to the farm, neighbors and friends had taken payloaders and ripped down the grain bin trying to find my dad. When they finally did, our neighbors started doing CPR until the EMTs took over. I followed the ambulance to the hospital with my family and the doctors fought to save him for hours. Nothing worked. That night, we lost my dad – this man who had seemed invincible to me.
Not too long after the accident, while we were still trying to pick up the pieces, our family received a letter from the IRS. Because of this tragedy, one that undermined our sense of security, the death tax was now about to undermine our financial security.
I could see that we had land that my dad started buying in high school and land my grandpa had bought decades before that. We had cattle and the machinery needed to farm the land and care for the cattle. But we didn’t have enough money in the bank to pay what the IRS was asking.
I have never understood why the federal government thought it was appropriate to go after families with this double tax – especially in a time of crisis. My family had already paid taxes on the equipment, the land, and any other assets. Now, we had to pay taxes on it again because my dad had died. It’s not right.I couldn’t imagine losing the farm my family had built. After all, it was my dad’s dream to pass it on to us kids.
That’s why he got up at the crack of dawn almost every morning. He wanted to give us the opportunity to farm together, if we wanted to.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
To keep our family’s American Dream going, we were fortunate enough to get a loan, albeit one so large that it impacted nearly every decision we made for a decade.
I have never understood why the federal government thought it was appropriate to go after families with this double tax – especially in a time of crisis. My family had already paid taxes on the equipment, the land, and any other assets. Now, we had to pay taxes on it again because my dad had died. It’s not right.
This month, Hillary Clinton proposed a dramatic 65 percent increase to the death tax, pushing it to the highest point since 1981. She justifies this as a tax on the 1 percent, but all too often it is small businesses and family farms that are put into jeopardy for a few days’ worth of government spending.
Earlier this fall, the House Ways and Means Committee offered a blueprint for tax reform designed to grow families’ paychecks, the workforce, and the American economy. In doing so, we worked to shrink the tax burden for every family and streamline the tax code to make it more simple and fair. This includes eliminating damaging add-on taxes – most notably, the death tax.
No family should have to go through what ours did. Clinton’s proposal is a tax on the American Dream during a time of tragedy. Hardworking Americans deserve better.
Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) was first elected to serve as South Dakota’s lone Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. She was re-elected to a third term in the House in 2014. She currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. Kristi is also a wife, mother, experienced rancher, farmer and small business owner.
Trump's new DC hotel vandalized with spray-painted graffiti
WASHINGTON – Donald Trump's new luxury hotel in downtown Washington has been vandalized.
District of Columbia police say someone spray-painted the phrases "black lives matter" and "no justice no peace" on the front of the building on Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday, the phrases were covered up with pieces of plywood.
Police spokeswoman Aquita Brown said Sunday that police have not identified any suspects. The incident occurred just after 4 p.m. Saturday, and police are investigating.
The Trump International Hotel opened on Sept. 12. The Trump Organization won a 60-year lease from the federal government to transform the historic Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue into a hotel. Rooms at the hotel start at just under $400 a night, down from nearly $900 a night when the hotel opened.
Judge Jeanine Slams Hillary: 'You Don’t Support Women, You Destroy Them'
"What’s more offensive? Words or actions?" Judge Jeanine Pirro asked in her 'Opening Statement' on Saturday.
"The presidential election in 38 days comes down to the battle of political corruption versus truth—where one candidate chooses political correctness, [and] the other [is] brave enough to state the obvious," Pirro said on "Justice".
"One says things not politically correct: not run through the prism of the contemporary political lens. The other...carefully filters [her words] and then flat out lies to [our] faces," Pirro said, pointing to Hillary Clinton.
Pirro particularly criticized Clinton for claiming to be a champion for women and families.
"You tell me what’s worse—name-calling or lying to grieving parents as their sons' bodies lay cold in caskets...and then turning around and calling those parents liars," she said, referring to allegations by Benghazi victim Sean Smith’s mother Patricia, who said Clinton lied to her about the circumstances of her son's death.
"And although [Donald Trump] may be impolitic, and while I am not a fan of things he said 20 years ago about a woman—under a contractual obligation to maintain her appearance—your history with women is about destroying them," Pirro continued.
"You don’t support women, you destroy them—whether it’s all the women who've accused your husband of serial marital infidelities, sexual harassment, and yes—rape. Instead of protecting a 12 year old, a college intern, a rape victim, you job: ruin them. Destroy any woman who gets in the way of your ambition. None of it [is] the predator’s fault."
Pirro recalled allegations that Clinton called Gennifer Flowers "trailer trash" and Monica Lewinsky a "narcissistic loony toon."
"What’s important are not words," Pirro said, referring to Clinton’s repeated criticisms of Trump’s language, "what’s important are actions...how one candidate has chosen to lie about issues that involve the government of the greatest nation on Earth."
"She’s gaming you, folks," Pirro said to the audience, "she takes money from countries who stone women for adultery...this woman has corrupted the State Department, the Department of Justice and—now I’m ashamed to admit—the honored tradition of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Clinton's depiction of young voters who backed him
Bernie Sanders on Sunday acknowledged being bothered by Hillary Clinton’s unflattering perception of the young Americans who backed his longshot primary bid against Clinton, saying their campaigns still have “real differences,” despite their joint effort to defeat Donald Trump.
“Of course it does,” Sanders, a Vermont senator, told CNN’s “State of the Union,” in response to a question about whether Clinton’s remarks at a fundraiser amid their hotly contested Democratic primary bothered him. “We have real differences.”
Clinton characterized the young voters -- impassioned by Sanders' populist message and who still have yet to embrace Clinton -- as “living in their parents’ basement” and disenfranchised about the future, according to a 49-minute audiotape of the February fundraiser, purportedly found in a hacked email, then given to The Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the story.
"If you’re feeling like you’re consigned to being a barista . . . then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing," Clinton also says in the audio tape, describing her thoughts after talking to a young African-American voter.
Clinton, like her Republican rival Trump, will need the youth vote to win the presidency.
However, Clinton continues to struggle with the voting bloc, which includes many college students, like those who helped Barack Obama win two terms and who frequently back liberal candidates.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
Despite Sanders’ misgivings about Clinton and her policies, the self-described democratic-socialist has helped Clinton try to win the youth vote, most recently at the University of New Hampshire last week where they touted essentially a hybrid free-tuition, debt-free college affordability plan.
“The bottom line is what we have done since the primary is work together in a number of areas,” Sanders also said on CNN.
He also said that Clinton’s basic argument at the private fundraiser was, nevertheless, essentiallly what he said during the primary, that young people graduating from college cannot find a job that pays enough for them to move out of their parents’ basements.
“We need a political revolution,” Sanders said.
With about five weeks to go before Election Day, Clinton holds a slight, single-digit lead over Trump, her Republican rival, according to most recent polls.
New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump adviser, told “Fox News Sunday” that Clinton’s comments just add to her recent remark that half of Trump supporters are “deplorables.”
“If you are not part of the Northeast elite, she has nothing to do with you,” Christie said.
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