Alternative Minimum Estate Tax?

Much though I like the idea of the estate tax, as a way to take my money only from my cold, dead hands, I intenseley dislike the idea that the estate tax as currently implemented in the United States falls mostly on middle-class people who lack tax shelters, rather than also on the obscenely-rich.

It seems to me that we need an alternative minimum estate tax at least as much as an alternative minimum income tax, in order to ensure that so long as middle class people have to pay income and estate taxes at hefty rates, so too must the obscenely rich.

It particularly galls me when the truly wealthy, such as Warren Buffet, oppose getting rid of the estate tax, yet act in ways intended to ensure it will not be paid on their own estate.

That to me is as offensive as when Senator Ted Kennedy touts the benefit of higher taxes, while having paid a lower tax rate on his income than I have every year of my adult life.

If you believe in the benefits of government funding, then put your own money where your mouth is.

Here's a small example: I'm a big supporter of mass transit. Part of that support is that I buy a monthly Metra pass each month. As it happens, I will get almost no use from my Metra pass next month, and could save about a hundred dollars by not buying it for that month. However, because I believe in supporting mass transit, I am paying for that pass anyway.

I wish there were more examples of the truly rich doing the same, rather than talking big about government solutions while pinching every one of their own pennies.
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