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Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News Kissell p.o.'s his (former) strongest supporters
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 2:46 PM
As the Republicans vying to oppose Rep. Larry Kissell snipe at each other in classic circular firing squad fashion, Kissell himself has been veering to the right – enough so that he has angered the liberal coalition that worked hard to get him elected in 2008. At this point, it appears that Kissell's status with N.C. progressives has been seriously damaged, probably irreparably.
First, Kissell voted against the TARP funds; liberals were divided about the issue, so Kissell’s position only got a little notice. Then he voted against the House health care reform bill, and progressives started talking about “betrayal” and “turncoats.”
Some liberals, though, were still inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. No longer, not since Sunday. That’s when it was revealed that Kissell is pushing for action on the issue that’s most on the minds of the working folks of his district, which suffered catastrophic job losses in the past decade: abolishing the estate tax. Huh?! Kissell says the estate tax “is a burden for our hard-working families and punishes heirs for their family’s success.” It’s hard to imagine how normal, hard-working families would be impacted at all by the estate tax, since it doesn’t kick in until after a married couple's inheritance tops $7 million ($3.5 million for individuals). Anything over those amounts gets taxed at a 45 percent rate. The estate tax controversy was cooked up by the ultra-rich, who’ve convinced a lot of conservatives who should know better that the tax has some bearing on own their well-being.
Kissell is obviously going for more of the hard-right vote, and more contributions from conservative multi-millionaires. As one person on the BlueNC website put it, however, “If Larry thinks he is going to get the vote of the anti-tax conservative, he is fooling himself because they will never vote for a Democrat.” Whether that proves to be true or not, Kissell seems to have rid himself of the people who contributed the most money, and worked the hardest for his previous campaign – NC progressives – and that can’t be a good sign for him.
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