Letter: With estate tax, you pay tax man twice

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006 | 7:35 a.m.

The column by Tom Teepen in Wednesday's Sun gave about the most succinct and accurate description of the Democratic philosophy that I've seen. There was a bill raising the minimum wage and lowering the estate tax. This bill had enough votes to pass both houses of Congress but was filibustered, dead, by the Democrats because of their opposition to the estate tax part of the bill.

Mr. Teepen wrote about the estate tax portion of the bill, "The administration's attempt to give money to the people who least need it ..." If you think about this statement, it says that all earned money belongs to the government, and if you get to keep any of it, that is a gift from the government.

If you take a lot of money from a few who have earned it, and give it to a lot of people who have not earned it, you may lose the vote of the few you have robbed, but you gain not only the vote but also the dependency of the many you have bribed. It works! This is the core principle of many successful politicians. In the case of the estate tax, it works twice. It is taxed when you earn it and taxed again when you die.

Charles Gould, Las Vegas