[Vision2020] Millionaire Leaves Entire Estate To Pay National Debt

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (January 20, 2006) WFTV's Eyewitness News (Florida) website at:

 

http://www.wftv.com/money/6273546/detail.html

 

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Millionaire Leaves Entire Estate To Pay National Debt

 

POSTED: 9:37 am EST January 20, 2006

 

FINDLAY, Ohio -- A woman who died Nov. 9 at age 98 has bequeathed her $1.1
million estate to the federal government and requested that it be used to
help pay down the $8.1 trillion national debt. 

 

Attorney Tom Drake, the executor of Margaret Elizabeth Taylor's estate, said
his client made it "very clear" what her fortune was to be used for. Her
will was filed recently in Hancock County Probate Court.

 

Taylor, of Findlay, was a staunch Democrat who believed the national debt
should be paid off and she wanted to do her part, Drake said.

 

"It's not what I would have advised her to do with it, but she really wasn't
interested in my opinion," he said. "In the end, an attorney has to listen
to their client. That's what I did." 

 

Taylor had no living siblings or children, and her husband died in 1977.

 

"She had told me once that she wasn't planning on leaving anything to
family," cousin Maxine Magoon said. "She didn't tell me exactly what she was
going to do with it, but said that a lot of people would benefit." 

 

Treasury Department officials couldn't remember a larger gift, spokesman
Stephen Meyerhardt said Thursday. 

 

"It's the biggest in at least the last 15 years, and most likely the largest
one ever," he said. "Needless to say, most donations are much, much
smaller." 

 

Bureau of the Public Debt records show that U.S. citizens donated a total of
$1.5 million toward debt reduction last year. 

 

Taylor was known in her northwest Ohio community for giving to charity, her
church and friends. "She was also very involved with her stocks," Magoon
said. 

 

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Take care, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"

 

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