An Embarrassment of Riches

By Jonathan Tasini, TomPaine.com. Posted September 6, 2005.

We have a new caucus on Capitol Hill: the chazer caucus. For those of you who might not be hip, chazer is the Yiddish word for pig. As in, "Gee, that person has so much [fill in the blank], to grab for more is just being a chazer ."

Which brings me to a lead footsoldier in the chazer caucus, Republican Sen. Jon Kyl. Right after Labor Day, Kyl will attempt to bring to a vote a bill that would repeal the estate tax. When some really rich person croaks, their assets get transferred to their heirs, who, God forbid, have to pay taxes when the estate gets to a certain level.

The chazer caucus has been brilliant in framing the estate tax as a "death tax" hurting poor family farmers. But that turns out to be nonsense. As the good folks from OMB Watch point out, "An incredibly tiny number of family farms are actually impacted by the estate tax." A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that "if the current exemption level of $1.5 million per individual ($3 million for a couple) were in effect in 2000, then only 300 family farms would have had to pay any estate taxes. The report further estimates the number of family farms impacted would have dropped to a mere 65 farms nationwide with an exemption of $3.5 million ($7 million per couple), the level the exemption will be in 2009."

This tax hits only the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. The Coalition for America's Priorities underscores the fact that this tax hits a tiny portion of the population: "In 2001, over half of all estate taxes were paid by 3,502 people with estates larger than $5 million -- representing the top 0.14 percent of all Americans."

The estate tax stayed largely unchanged until 2001, when the current president took office. What's truly amazing is that the estate tax is supposed to disappear by 2010, and then be reinstated in 2011 -- as one of the gimmicks that was part of the Bush tax cuts.

And what's the cost of giving the richest Americans more cash? In the first 10 years, the U.S. Treasury will lose between $750 billion and one trillion dollars, forcing more cuts in education, Medicare and other key social programs -- not to mention piling on more debt for future generations. This is an unconscionable raid on the public treasury by people already benefiting from the Bush tax cuts.

It shows what a pickle we are in that the forces of light who are fighting complete repeal are suggesting one possible compromise. Instead of completely eliminating the estate tax, the compromise deal would raise the exempted estate tax to $3.5 million and $7 million for couples. But why compromise? Why shouldn't people sitting on several millions dollars be forced to pay the current tax on estates? One thing that we forget in the debate over taxes is that the wealth of the richest in our society is not a natural phenomena or due to pure skill -- society makes multi-billion dollar public investments in areas such as infrastructure and education that make it possible for the rich to pile up their wealth. Think of taxing estates as simply a modest payback for public services rendered -- the reason most people pay taxes on their paychecks.

Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group. His blog Working Life chronicles the labor movement and other issues affecting American workers.

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