Our Modern Day Kulaks

  The House voted yesterday to permanently repeal the Estate Tax (cleverly dubbed the "death tax" by its opponents). As one would expect, the opposition has been fierce and laced with vitriol. Opponents call the repeal the "Paris Hilton Benefit Act," showing both their contempt for an innocent (albeit trampy) young women, and their lack of imagination in crafting rebuttals.

Thoroughly unconvincing is the only way to describe their arguments. Consider the reasoning of Matthew Yglesias on his blog:

I might be an earnest, hardworking dude who works in the store. And somebody might die and give the store to me. The store may be worth millions and millions of dollars. If so, I ought to pay tax on it. Why? Because I've just inherited millions and millions of dollars, that's why. That I'm earnest and hardworking, and that my riches came in the form of a valuable store rather than a heaping plate of gold matters not a whit. What about those sad folks forced to sell the family business? Don't cry for them. Here you are, you inherit a store worth $X. You owe $Y in taxes, with Y being less than X. So you are "forced" to sell the store, and accept "only" $X-Y as your inheritance. Note that X is a figure in the millions, and Y a small proportion of X. This is a very good problem to have, abstracting away from the fact that someone you love has probably died and this is probably a bigger concern of yours that the tax bill. This is, in other words, a non-problem.

Now he's right in that a financial gift puts you ahead so long as it's greater than 1 cent. Other than that, what an unbelievably stupid argument. I'm sure Mr. Yglesias is no totalitarian, but apparently he believes that the individual has no claim on his resources whatsoever. Even if we find it repugnant for Ms. Hilton to be handed a large inheritance, focusing on her is incorrect. In reality, it's the wishes of her parents that are being carried out. It's their property rights that are being protected. Just as my grandmother can send me a birthday card with $10 in it, so too may Mr. and Mrs. Hilton give to their daughter as much of their legitimately owned money as they please. (Not to mention that the estate tax is a tax on money that's already been taxed in one form or another while Mr. and Mrs. Hilton controlled it).

But don't these taxes only fall on the richest of the rich? Yes. But why single these individuals out? We've begun to address other forms of discrimination (racism, sexism, anti-semitism), but many still view the rich as different entities, somehow unlike us. They are the modern-day Kulaks.