Something from Nothing
Class envy oozes from The Tennessean's editorial today opposing permanent cuts in the death tax.

The paper argues against making the cuts - part of President Bush's tax package passed last summer - permanent. Under current law, the tax is virtually phased out over 10 years and then, whammo, reverts to its original and punitive 2001 rate. The House of Representatives passed a law making the tax cut permanent, but the Democrat-led Senate has so far refused to follow suit.

The Tennessean characterizes the House vote as a vote to "take $740 billion from U.S. coffers, giving it to an elite group — the children of the ultra-wealthy."

Of course, the opposite is true. Making the tax cut permanent would not "take" money from the U.S. treasury because it would never be there in the first place. You can't take something from nothing. And the paper's crack about "giving it to ... the children of the ultra-wealthy" is pure demagoguery. By making the estate tax reform permanent, government would not be giving money to anyone. An estate is given by the parents who earned it to their children, who in many cases suffered through years of having one or both parents work long hours to build a business worth handing down. Such children have surely earned their inheritances.

The paper's insistence that ending the estate tax amounts to government "giving" money to anyone reflects an untrue notion that it is the government that creates wealth. The only time the government ever gives any money to someone it must first take it from someone else.

By failing to make estate tax reform permanent, it is the Senate that favors taking $740 billion - taking it away from the families that earned it.