On dying for one's country

The argument that there can't be persuasive reason to rewrite a law that affects so few people ought not to be accepted without scrutiny. It is true that only one of a hundred Americans dies having to pay 55 percent of his estate over to the government, and probably true that only one out of a hundred Americans exercises the right to free speech, which doesn't make free speech less august a right.

Liberalism is about protecting the minority, whether from racial or economic discrimination. If it is right to deprive someone of 55 percent of his capital, why should the state have to wait until death to lay claim to it? If it is money that truly belongs to the government, why does government have to wait until the old codger finally turns in, before helping itself to what really belongs to the government, or should belong to it?

On the empirical point, we have to use common sense. We are told that something on the order of $400 billion per year are expended on lawyers, accountants and others whose design it is, however slightly, to maneuver around existing taxation in order to lessen the burden. If that is so, can't we generalize that the man (or woman) worth $10 million will mightily exert himself to reduce his exposure? And if so, what will be the impact of those exertions on the community? Is economic behavior encouraged which is alien to the public interest?

To the argument that, after all, high estate taxes have been on the books for so many years, and why should we suddenly think them iniquitous, the proper observation is: What about the Social Security penalty? For decades a dollar of Social Security was deducted for every $2 earned by 65-year-olds. Then, one day, somebody got up and said: This is wrong. And the

entire Senate and House voted repeal of the invidious measure. Why don't they simply say, with the same moral assurance, that it's simply wrong to impose tax at confiscatory rates on the wealthy? What did they do to deserve jacobinical treatment?