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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Millionaires Urge GOP Leaders to Save Estate Tax

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Monday, May 1, 2017   

DENVER – More than 50 multi-millionaires have signed a letter urging President Donald Trump and Congress to abandon their attempts to abolish the federal estate tax, the only tax on inherited wealth in the U.S.

Chuck Collins, heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune and author of the book "Born on Third Base," points out the tax only applies to households with assets of more than $11 million.

He adds the tax was put in place 100 years ago to prevent the kind of inherited aristocracy the nation fought a revolutionary war over.

"In that way, the estate tax is a fundamentally American tax,” he states. “It's really the way in which we protect a level playing field and ensure that too much inequality doesn't sort of upend our democratic system."

Collins says starting in the 1990s, a handful of wealthy families – including Mars, Walton, Gallo and others – invested millions lobbying to end the tax, a move that would save their heirs billions.

Trump once called the tax a "burden on the American worker."

But Collins notes that more than 99 percent of Americans will never be subject to the tax, and is confident the estates that will take a hit can afford it.

Supporters of Trump's proposed tax plan argue lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthy will lead to a revived economy and ultimately increase tax revenues.

Collins acknowledges that cutting taxes for the middle class, along with increased wages, can boost the economy, but he says tax breaks for people with millions in the bank don't change their consumer behavior.

"Cutting taxes for multi-millionaires and billionaires actually has very little positive economic impact,” he maintains. “The rest of us have to pick up the slack, and ‘the rest of us’ is the middle class."

Collins says if Trump's claim to a $10 billion net worth is true, eliminating the estate tax would effectively transfer $4 billion from U.S. coffers to his heirs.





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