Paul Waldman remarks in WaPo on the tax bill currently in conference committtee:
Those are value judgments, rooted in how Republicans tend to view the worth of different people. They operate on the presumption that the economic system is fair, and the results of that system provide a measure of different people’s virtue. If you’re rich — even if you got rich by choosing the right parents — they presume that you deserve to be taxed as lightly as possible, while if you’re in need of the kinds of help we offer low-income people, then it reflects a moral failing. If we give you any help at all, it should be as grudging as possible, accompanied by stern lectures and even rituals of humiliation such as drug tests.
Which inspires me to ask, How about if we require drug tests when you’re inheriting money, and if you fail the drug test, you don’t get the inheritance?
Seems fair to me. It even makes sense. Why should some crack-head son of a billionaire get all that money just because Daddy found a way to make it? What did you do, sonny, that earns you that amazing inheritance? (Hey, we could make it into a game show!)
America was built on the idea of it being a meritocracy, and this attempt to protect estates is distinctly un-American.
