PM Carpenter on the Estate Tax

April 15, 2005

Dead dumb and radical

With the help of Orwellian word-spinster Frank Luntz, modern conservatives have managed to convince the average American of at least two things: The estate tax is really a “death tax”; and what’s more, no matter what you call it, the tax is as un-American as lib’rulism. True to form, the House has voted to repeal the insidious thing.

For the moment let’s overlook their cheesy word game of “death” vs. “estate” tax, and look instead at the cheesy “un-American” angle -- an adjectival abuse in right-wing lexicography that always translates into “un-conservative.” If you’re a regular auditor of unltraconservative shenanigans, it won’t surprise you to learn that their verbal straining offends the historical truth. For the estate tax is, in fact, as American and conservative, politically speaking, as the country is old.