BTW, if anyone could pass pointers to good rebuttals, I'd appreciate. I got this from my Econ 205 instructor, who is very much neo-con, neo- classical, and not at all disinclined to vector his views via the classroom. But I do get the opportunity to refute when inclined (i.e. when equipped); your prompt assistance is appreciated.
> The Moral Sense in Estate Tax Repeal
> [Op-Ed]
> New York Times
> Print Media Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
> New York, N.Y.
> Jul 24, 2000
> Authors: Alan Wolfe
> Pagination: 19
> ISSN: 03624331
> Dateline: CHESTNUT HILL, Mass.
> Full Text: Captioned as: Alan Wolfe is director of the Center for
> Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and is the
> author of ''One Nation, After All.''
> Since the supply-side revolution of the Reagan years, the Republican
> Party has vigorously advocated tax cuts. The idea seemed to make
> sense both as policy and as politics. Lower taxes, supply-side
> theorists argued, would stimulate economic growth, thereby avoiding
> budget deficits. And the appeal to voters would turn the Republicans
> into the majority party, for few people would be able to resist the
> notion that government's money is really their own, best left in
> their pockets.
> The policy behind tax-cutting never quite worked as expected; until
> recently, deficits plagued the American economy. Neither did the
> politics. To be sure, Walter Mondale lost badly to Ronald Reagan in
> 1984 after he talked about raising taxes, but then Americans began
> to tell pollsters that tax-cutting was not a high priority with
> them. A program of slashing federal spending -- even shutting
> government down -- wound up harming the Republican Party's hopes for
> majority status. Steve Forbes made tax cuts the linchpin of
> campaigns for his party's nomination and got nowhere. New Hampshire,
> the most tax-resistant state in America, began to consider an income
> tax.
> It therefore seemed to be one more example of political folly when
> Senate and House Republicans decided to take on the estate tax.
> First passed by Congress in 1916 to help pay for World War I, the
> federal tax on estates kicks in when a person leaves assets valued
> at $675,000 (rising to $1 million in 2005). Because only 2 percent
> of American estates are taxed, Republican calls for repeal reeked of
> the party's proclivity to reward its wealthy donors, even at the
> risk of alienating individuals whose more modest estates would never
> be taxed.
> President Clinton responded by insisting that any tax relief should
> go not to the very rich, but to those who have fallen behind in
> these dizzying economic times. Democrats have discovered that when
> it comes to tax policy, class warfare works; Americans are receptive
> to the notion that Republicans appeal too much to selfish motives to
> be fully trusted with the common good.
> Yet as the estate tax issue played itself out, both parties found
> themselves surprised. Democrats, realizing that they are on the
> defensive, are trying to fashion a compromise that would benefit
> farmers and small businessmen. Republicans, not used to capturing
> the moral high ground on any issue, sense blood and would like
> nothing more than a presidential veto.
> One possible explanation of this reversal of fortune is that even
> poor Americans someday hope to be rich enough to have an estate;
> these days, after all, anyone owning a house in a desirable
> neighborhood is already within sight of the tax's minimum. But this
> assumes that Americans are selfish enough to want to hold on to
> their money even when they do not make much of it. The problem with
> this explanation is that because the estate tax is paid after you
> are dead, you cannot hold on to it. You can, of course, spend it
> before you die. But once you are dead, there are only two options:
> It can be left to those you designate, usually your children, or it
> can be left to everyone in the form of general tax revenue.
> The philosopher Immanuel Kant taught that the more just solution
> would be to leave your estate to everyone; we are obligated to
> others, Kant believed, irrespective of whether we know them
> personally. It follows that if you are rich enough to have an estate
> eligible to be taxed, needy people unknown to you are more deserving
> of your largess than the few children you happen to have had. But
> while Americans do not mind being taxed, they do not trust
> government to do what is right. Uncertain that the money they have
> earned will go to all, they would rather make sure it goes to some.
> And who better to pick those to whom it will go than the person who
> made the money in the first place?
> This instinct to leave your own money to your own children cannot be
> called selfish. Sociobiologists, in fact, would call it altruistic,
> for in their view the willingness of an organism -- usually a gene
> -- to sacrifice so that its offspring flourishes is the very
> definition of altruism. Whether or not one agrees with them, repeal
> of the estate tax taps into very strong family feelings.
> Paying for college illustrates the principles involved. It is
> grossly unfair that rich Americans can send their children to better
> universities than those that poor Americans can afford. The
> unfairness is compounded when the best colleges admit so-called
> legacies -- students whose parents attended these same colleges.
> Should we therefore encourage parents to forgo all advantages for
> their own children, giving the money they save instead to a
> scholarship fund for any needy students? Or should we be happy that
> people will go to such lengths to ensure that people other than
> themselves get ahead, even if those others are related to them by
> blood?
> In a way that makes sense to them, even if it does not make sense to
> philosophers, Americans who support repeal of the estate tax, like
> Americans who deprive themselves of vacations in order to send their
> children to first-rate colleges, are expressing a generous urge.
> Repeal of the estate tax gives Republicans the opportunity to speak
> about solidarity. To be sure, the solidarity that repeal encourages,
> because it focuses on the family rather than society as a whole, is
> limited in scope. But it is broader than the extreme individualism
> of the free-market Republican rhetoric Americans find less than
> ennobling.
> Americans prefer strengthening ties among people they know to the
> alternatives of either looking out for no one or looking out for
> everyone. Estate tax repeal corresponds to the basic moral instincts
> of most Americans. That is why, unlike tax-cutting across the board,
> it is a winning political issue.