But Paris gets an extra Bentley.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Brief Article

Last month, the House voted to end the estate tax. This has to be one of the greatest propaganda triumphs of the Bush administration. And that's saying something because the boys have done pretty well in this area. When the administration came to power in 2001, only 49,911 decedents had estates large enough to be affected by the tax. That was only 2.1 percent of all the people who died that year. Yet by calling the tax a "Death Tax," and selling the public on the idea that it was unfair to tax them for dying, the Republicans seem likely to succeed in eliminating a valuable source of revenue, one that was notable for hitting only those who could afford it. In 2001, the average estate taxed was worth $2.7 million.

Now...