Estate Tax madness

This is a letter I sent in to the local paper. Don't know yet if it will be posted:

Dear Editor,
I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that our Senators Gregg and Sununu had voted in favor of outright repeal of the federal estate tax. It is fascinating to watch our political and economic landscape repeat today what occurred roughly a century ago. The gap between the wealthy and poor in this country is widening. There is an attitude widely prevalent in government that "business knows best" about the environment, wages, benefits and the economy itself. This is similar to the period of time after the "Gilded Age" in this country when we Americans had to confront the issue of how to handle hereditary wealth and it's effects on our country.

Many had come here to escape Europe where it was by heredity that power and wealth was transferred. It had become clear that a mechanism to prevent the same from happening in this country. At the birth of our country, Thomas Paine himself was one of the first to propose such a tax in this country!

Other weathy Americans have since then concurred. It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” And Warren Buffet has said, "The idea that you get a lifetime of food stamps based on coming out of the right womb strikes at my idea of fairness.”

It is therefore ironic that Republicans today use the "fairness" test to promote the elimination of estate taxes. Fair to whom?