The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to eliminate federal estate taxes beginning in 2010. Republicans have been demonizing the so-called “death tax” for many years. President Bush said soon after taking office in 2001 that, “to keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax.” After the election, the Bush administration searched high and low for several weeks, not finding one family farm lost to the estate tax.

The real issue is what kind of society we want. Do we want a meritocracy, where wealth is earned or an aristocracy, where it is inherited? Wealth disparities in the United States are closer to third-world countries than other industrialized countries. Without a mechanism to break apart large fortunes, we are rapidly approaching the old European model of aristocracy.

Some very wealthy people understand the negative consequences and so are “dead-set” against repealing the estate tax. Warren Buffet, Ted Turner and Bill Gates are among the more prominent members of this group. They argue that concentrated wealth undermines our democracy by allowing a relatively small group of people power beyond their numbers. Concentrated wealth also places control of much of our nation’s resources in the hands of people based on their heredity, not their merit.

These same billionaires also realize their fortunes were made possible by the system and the country into which they were born.

The federal government created our banking, commerce and securities systems, along with most of the infrastructure of this country using our tax dollars. Tax dollars fund medical and agricultural research, among many other things — work that benefits not only our citizens but all the people of the world.

Our society suffers when creative, intelligent and industrious people are denied the opportunity to fulfill their potential while others with much less intrinsic ability (think of Paris Hilton) are given tremendous fortunes by an accident of birth.

To me, these policies are both anti-Christian, anti-family and anti-patriotic.

Ted Peterson

Systems Analyst

Professional and Scientific