Our brain dead members of the House voted to eliminate the estate tax. This is dumb. Really dumb. First of all, the estate tax effects a very, very, very slim minority of people. Second of all, the farmers and small business owners that the Republicans claim this is helping can easily be helped by raising the threshold a bit. Right now it is at $1.5M. Make it $5M and it covers all of those poster child cases. Hell, make it $10M.

The people most “hurt” by the estate tax are the ultra wealthy, i.e. those people with generational wealth who inherited their fortune and want every child and grandchild and descendent to be wealthy until the end of time. First of all, I personally think generational wealth is bad for America. The rich love to talk about a meritocracy. If they truly believe that they should be for an ungodly high estate tax rate, because people that inherit money did not earn it. There is no “merit” there. Second, if you inherit millions or billions of dollars, it is a no brainer that you can make it into even more millions and billions. In terms of equal opportunity in this country, no question people that inherit ungodly fortunes have a huge advantage.

Make no question about it — the estate tax still leaves plenty of room for rich cry babies to remain rich cry babies. If you are worth a shit load of money when you die, your children will still have a shit load of money. What we are saying with the estate tax is that your wealth was not created in a vacuum and you have a responsibility to share some portion of your wealth with the country that made it possible after you are dead and don’t need it anymore.

As a side note, people that leave huge fortunes to their children are idiots anyway. I can’t think of a more efficient way to turn people into white trash than give them millions of dollars for no reason. As Warren Buffet says, you should leave your kids enough money that they feel they can do anything but not so much they can do nothing.

The estate tax is fair, it effects very few people, it helps support the very society that makes extreme wealth possible, it is consistent with a philosophy of a meritocracy, it can be tweaked to protect farmers and small business owners, and we absolutely need it.

Why the hell are Republicans so stupid that even in times of war and soaring debt they still want to eliminate taxes? These people are fiscally irresponsible.