In today’s Washington Post, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD8) lays out the Democrats’ best argument for reinstatement of the estate tax. As near as ‘Puter’s tiny brain can figure, the argument is this:

1. Rich people have money.
2. Congress needs money to fund useless programs.
3. Once rich people die, they don’t need money any more.
4. Therefore, we can take as much as we want from your estate since you won’t be needing it.

This is the empty, yet alluring, rhetoric of class warfare. We’re going to take Richie Rich’s ill-gotten pelf and redistribute it to fund worthy programs for the little guy, like small fruit research, or cool season legume research.

Contrary to popular belief, small fruit research is not Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) earmark. Rep. Frank’s earmark is the $69 million Mandatory Accommodations in Needham for Homosexuals On the Rebound, or MAN HOR Act, so named in honor of Rep. Frank’s homosexual male prostitute bunkmate, Stephen L. Gobie.

It’s bad enough that Democrats are whining to get the estate tax reinstated. ‘Puter uses the word reinstated, as the estate tax is zero percent for tax year 2010. But Republicans have gone along with the Democrats’ naked thievery. There will be a reinstated estate tax with individual exemptions at $5 million and couple exemptions at $10 million. After these exemptions are met, your estate will pay a 35% tax to the federal treasury.

There’s no rationale (other than Congressional greed and overreach) for an estate tax.

In fact, you will have paid, or your heirs will pay, taxes on every dollar saved or invested and on every dollar of profit you realize off investment over your life. In essence, you are taxing wealth that has already been taxed once. It’s double dipping, and it’s fundamentally unfair, whether the screw-ee can afford it or not.

It’s almost like paying sales tax on a used car. The full value of the vehicle has been taxed once. Other than feeding the ravenous Taxxenspendasaurus, there’s no logical reason to tax the same value again.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.