Maybe it's geography, but I often find Madison-based John Nichols and myself thinking along the same lines. While conservatives call the estate tax a "death tax," Nichols comes up with a much more accurate term for it -- the aristocracy tax (the link is mine):
The estate tax agreement is a giveaway to millionaires. Indeed, as the group United for a Fair Economy notes, "The deal (Obama accepted) would make the estate tax even weaker than it was under President Bush, and the weakest it has been in seven decades."
"Originally," the group OMB Watch notes, "President Obama had been calling for extending 2009 estate tax levels as a compromise on the issue. An extension of the 2009 estate tax would exempt the first $3.5 million ($7 million for couples) of an estate's value and tax any amount above that at a rate of 45 percent. This proposal was more than generous to the wealthy of this nation, as it would affect less than 1 percent of estates each year."...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
