When I first became a financial advisor, each citizen was entitled to a $600,000 Estate Tax Exemption at death. That meant a wealthy married couple, with a little planning, could leave their children $1.2 million tax-free when they died. After 2018 the exemption goes to $11.2 million per person or, $22.4 million for a married couple, and in six years, the tax goes away entirely. For ordinary citizens, it’s the income tax benefits that go away in six years. This is when many legislators and other experts are claiming Social Security won’t have the funds to keep their promises in the not too distant future. Another reason why the rich get richer and most everyone else doesn’t. Not a lot of talk about this in the mainstream media.

Remember when the big banks were bailed out in 2008? Next time it might be you who will help bail them out. It’s called a “bail-in” and is due to the fact that when you deposit your money into a bank account now, the funds are legally considered an investment in the bank. And it’s “investors” who will likely take the hit next time banks are threatened with bankruptcy. And that might be sooner than you think. This is not part of the next tax package, but just another of those little reported changes that took place after the last banking crisis.

These changes are indicative of a country that is no longer of, by or for the People. No government can be considered a democracy when so much wealth and power resides with one percent of the population, or when elected officials and citizens no longer even try to preserve, protect or defend the Constitution.

— Mark Goldman