Radio ads criticize Carnahan on taxes

A Missouri-wide radio campaign criticizes Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan's recent vote against permanently repealing federal estate taxes.

Carnahan's campaign replied Friday that she promoted speedier tax relief targeted to help family farmers, while dismissing the legislation that failed as "better for billionaires."

"Don't let tax relief die in the Senate, Senator Carnahan," celebrity Art Linkletter urges in the ad running on 66 Missouri radio stations.

The ads are financed by a conservative lobbying group, United Seniors Association, for which Linkletter is honorary chairman. The group is spending $200,000 for a three-state radio ad campaign criticizing Carnahan and Democratic senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.

On June 12, Carnahan voted against making permanent a temporary estate tax repeal that was approved last year as part of President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax relief package. The move for a permanent repeal fell six votes short of the 60 required for Senate passage.

Carnahan spokesman Dan Leistikow noted that she co-sponsored an unsuccessful amendment that Democrats say would have provided immediate estate tax relief crafted for family farmers.

The Democratic proposal would have boosted to $4 million the maximum estate value to qualify for a tax exemption. Carnahan said June 12 that few of her Missouri constituents had estates reaching $4 million.

Last year, Carnahan voted for the overall tax relief package, which begins phasing in the broad estate tax repeal around 2008 and completes the repeal in 2010.

But under Senate budget rules, the estate tax returns in 2011. It would have taken 60 Senate votes last week to set aside the rules, making the repeal permanent.

United Seniors Association chairman Charles Jarvis said Carnahan flip-flopped between last year and June 12. He said that if she supported dumping the estate tax, she should also support making the move permanent.

'Part of a compromise'

But Leistikow said the senator was never "a big supporter" of repealing all estate taxes, because she thinks that could threaten the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

"The plan last year was part of a compromise. She voted for that compromise, not liking every element of it but thinking that on balance it was a good tax cut for the working families of Missouri," Leistikow said Friday.

"Senator Carnahan's proposal is better for small businesses and family farmers while the plan that Jim Talent and the Republicans support is better for billionaires," he added.

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Talent of St. Louis County, the best-known Republican running for the seat held by Carnahan, has called the estate tax "stupid" and called for its permanent repeal.