GOP Sen. Kennedy Slams Biden and Yellen for Proposed Tax Changes: They Want to ‘Please Pink-Haired Wokers Who Carry Around Ziploc Bags of Kale’
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) joined Tucker Carlson on Thursday to criticize President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for supporting changing stepped-up basis, a tax policy that limits the financial burden of an inheritance for assets that have appreciated over time.
Biden’s proposal includes an exemption of $1 million for individuals and $2 million for married couples — significantly higher than the $500,000 exemption for couples that former President Barack Obama proposed in 2015. The proposal also offers capital gains tax exemptions to inherited family-owned businesses and farms, so long as the heirs continue to run it.
Yellen explicitly said she supports eliminating stepped-up basis during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
“I do support eliminating stepped-up basis,” she said. “The reason is that a very large share of the income of wealthy individuals is simply never taxed. Individuals hold on to these assets during their lifetime. That income is never taxed.”
After playing a clip from the hearing, Carlson went on to say that for average people unrealized capital gains mean real estate.
“Let’s suppose you have a young widow with three children, she never remarries,” Kennedy said. “She goes and buys a $150,000 home to raise her kids and she raises her kids in the home. She’s not rich, she works. But her main asset, her only asset is her home. Fifty years later, she dies.”
“As a result of inflation and appreciation over 50 years, her $150,000 home is now worth $1.75 million. She leaves her home to her kids,” he continued. “Under current law, her kids would not have to pay any income tax. On that home that they didn’t sell the property. They wouldn’t have to pay any inheritance tax either. But that’s a separate issue. But under the Biden-Yellen rule, those kids would automatically be taxed on the full value of the home whether they sold it or not. Now it’s a little more complex than that, but the point is, those kids are not going to have the money to pay the taxes.”
Kennedy then asserted that the proposal would “maul the real estate market.”
“And I guess the moral of the story is…this is what happens when you have a president and a Treasury secretary who are on a mission from God to please pink-haired wokers who carry around Ziploc bags of kale,” he added. “This is what happens when you have a president and a secretary who want to tax, spend, and regulate America into neo-socialism.”
Carlson then chimed in: “Well, especially since we’re not funding the government with tax revenue anyway because thanks to Janet Yellen, we’ve been funding the whole thing with fake money printed by the Federal Reserve. So why tax anybody anything at this point? The whole thing is punitive honestly.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
