R.I.P. Senator Snowbird

Ok this editorial in the WSJ tickled my funny bone:

Senator Snowbird, RIP
May 3, 2008; Page A10

Former Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who died in March at age 90, was an ultraliberal as a politician but also a savvy and very rich businessman. Before going to Washington in 1976, he had made a fortune on parking lots.

As a three-term Democrat, he made his reputation in Washington by attacking big business and fighting anything that even hinted of deregulation. His attacks against Clarence Thomas in 1991 prompted a famous retort from the future Supreme Court Justice: "God is my judge, Mr. Metzenbaum, not you."
[Howard Metzenbaum]

But we come today not to judge the late Senator, only to praise him for one last act of personal financial acumen. Though a lifelong Ohioan, the Senator moved to Florida in 2002, according to a declaration of domicile filed with the Broward County Clerk's office in 2003. In doing so, he avoided paying his home state's income tax (top rate: 6.55%).

More important as he neared the end of his life, the former Senator also saved his family from paying Ohio's death tax, which features one of the highest state rates (7%) and lowest asset thresholds – $338,333 – in the country. Florida famously has no income or estate tax, which is one reason other than the climate that it is home to so many northern-born retirees.

Howard Metzenbaum thus denied the state in which he lived most of his life a parting financial gift. But he has at least provided the rest of us with a teaching moment in tax policy. If a liberal lion like Metzenbaum is willing to relocate late in life to avoid his state's death tax, maybe living politicians in Ohio will better understand how their confiscatory tax laws are driving its citizens to warmer climes.

 

As you noted, he's hardly alone in this.

We would labor hard and long listing the tens of thousands of wingnut assholes who have pursued the identical late-life path. Them's the laws. That's their privilege, given the rules of the game.

 

Gee, the WSJ Editorial Page - aka Wingnut Summer Camp -- didn't like Howard Metzenbaum and reveals itself to be just about as classy as it was when it was hounding Vince Foster.

 

The sustained intellectual dishonesty of the WSJ editorial page has long been staggering.

 

Fenian hates liberal hypocricy being pointed out. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

 

Didn't say it was tasteful . Did think it was a pretty funny title though.

 

What a piece of garbage.

Maybe the guy moved to Florida simply because he was tired of the winter. Like, oh, I don't know ... THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE EVERY YEAR.

Morons with an agenda. Few things worse, regardless of political ideology.

 

Its bad form but still a touch of irony given that the Senator was part of a group that wanted to tax the hell out of high income folks .

 

So was Teddy Roosevelt, inventor of the estate tax.

 

Senator Snowbird died?

Dayum!