Disabled Fight Multimillionaires' Support of 'Death Tax'

Disabled Fight Multimillionaires' Support of 'Death Tax'

CNSNews.com
Saturday, March17, 2001

Angered by the spectacle of prominent multimillionaires publicly opposing repeal of the federal estate tax, a Texas woman has responded by forming a group of disabled taxpayers to launch a nationwide advertising and grassroots campaign to lobby Congress to abolish the tax.

"I was deeply offended by the callous and heartless comments made by this group," said Erin O'Leary, president of Disabled Americans for Death Tax Relief. Millionaires Warren Buffet, William Gates Sr. and George Soros ran national ads in February urging Congress to keep the federal estate tax, which would affect their own heirs.

The tax may be on the legislative chopping block again this year. Though Congress voted to repeal it in 2000, former President Bill Clinton vetoed it. Seventy-one percent or more of Americans think estate taxes are unfair, according to two recent polls by Zogby International and McLaughlin & Associates.

But that hasn't stopped supporters of the death tax for lobbying against its repeal, and the high-profile support for the tax by Gates, Buffet and others.

O'Leary, a private investigator diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 10 years ago, objects to the federal government taking "55 percent of the wealth which families leave to their children and other heirs."

"Some of us who would receive this wealth are in wheelchairs," O'Leary explained.

"Some are deaf or blind. Some are on respirators. In order to live a full life, these Americans may require medical help ... beyond that which is covered by medical insurance. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates Sr. and George Soros believe that these people should be denied full financial help from their parents," O'Leary charged.

According to O'Leary, aside from some high-profile names, which now includes AOL Time Warner Vice Chairman Ted Turner, the people responsible for the millionaires' ad were less a random sample of American millionaires than longtime Democratic activists.

"Democrats outnumber Republicans 20-to-1," O'Leary wrote in an open letter to the American people. "The four Republican signers of the ... ad are even outnumbered by signers who contributed to Ralph Nader's presidential campaign."

Gates testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, saying, "I believe ... that it is not in the interest of this country to have large fortunes passed from generation to generation, forming ever larger pools of money and accretion of power."

The estate tax, said Gates, "does make serious inroads on what would, without it, be an ever increasing, inexorable build up of a larger and larger pool of money."

Supporters of estate tax repeal, however, argue that the tax hurts family-owned businesses and the economy as a whole.

"Because the estate tax falls on assets, it reduces incentives to save and invest and, therefore, hampers growth," said economist Gary Robbins, also testifying before the Senate committee. "The estate tax has a large dead-weight loss."

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