Today, Jeff Cook of the Policy and Taxation Group appeared on CNBC opposite CAPAF’s Michael Ettlinger, and went on a misleading tirade against the estate tax. Cook argued that the estate tax hits “family businesses directly,” causing the loss of “millions of American jobs.”

He also called Ettlinger’s completely accurate number of actual small businesses subject to the estate tax “absurd,” while characterizing Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) proposal to turn the estate tax into a $250 billion giveaway to the rich as a “moderate, mainstream” idea. Watch it:

Labeling the estate tax as crippling for small businesses is a common conservative tactic with no basis in reality. The Tax Policy Center has found that about 100 small businesses and family farms would be subject to the estate tax under President Barack Obama’s proposal, which would tax estates over $7 million at a 45 percent rate. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, almost all “small businesses” affected by the estate tax “are able to pay the tax bill without having to sell business assets.”

As Ettlinger said, Cook’s argument amounts to “flacking for the Paris Hiltons, the rich heirs and heiresses who have nothing to do with small businesses.” Indeed, Cook is one of two listed members of the Policy and Taxation Group, the other of which is Patricia Soldano, who has been crusading against the estate tax for decades. And Soldano is not funded by small businesses, but by extremely wealthy corporate families:

A little-known Southern California estate planner named Patricia Soldano launched her [estate tax] repeal effort with the backing of about 50 wealthy clients, with the Gallo and Mars families leading the way. Other contributors included the heirs of the Campbell soup and Krystal hamburger fortunes. Frank Blethen, whose family controls the Seattle Times Co., was also pivotal.

According to Congress Watch, Soldano likely represents many mega-millionaire and billionaire families, but “since 2000, Soldano has chosen to mask her clients’ identities by reporting the Policy and Taxation Group as lobbying on its own behalf.” “We don’t disclose our membership to anybody,” she says. Since 2001, the Policy and Taxation group has reported more than $4 million in lobbying income.

As ThinkProgress has been documenting, the anti-Obama “tea parties” going on today are not the “grassroots” effort that organizers claim, but are actually the work of corporate lobbyists, aided and abetted by Fox News. Lee Fang pointed out that one of those lobbyists — former Majority Leader and current FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey (R-TX) — is one of DC’s top “hired guns,” and FreedomWorks is one of those orchestrating the “grassroots” tea party movement.

With the tea parties, FreedomWorks is organizing protests against “a federal government run amok with economic bailouts.” However, Armey’s lobbying firm represented three of the financial behemoths that brought the economy to its knees, necessitating such a widespread government response in the first place. In just the last year, Armey’s firm, DLA Piper, has represented:

- American International Group (AIG)

- Lehman Brothers

- Merrill Lynch

The reasons for the lobbying listed on these institutions’ disclosure forms range from “Congressional hearings on financial services crisis” and tax issues to simply “policies affecting securities firms.” DLA Piper also represented TARP recipient Discover Financial Services.

Let’s look at these institutions for a moment. AIG attached a hedge fund to its insurance company, and wound up with $40 billion in credit default swaps that it couldn’t honor. It then paid out $165 million in bonuses, after being kept alive with $170 billion in taxpayer money.

Merrill Lynch incurred catastrophic losses on subprime mortgages, and was rescued by Bank of America, which needed an infusion of taxpayer money upon realizing the extent of Merrill’s losses. Merrill also paid out $3.6 million in bonuses right before merging with BofA. Lehman, meanwhile, went bankrupt after mucking about in subprime mortgages, sending a shock through the financial system, and ensuring that the government would not allow another big investment bank to fail.

These are the kinds of characters that Armey’s firm represents, and its a safe bet that DLA Piper wasn’t enlisted to push for tougher regulations or more stringent capital requirements. And now Armey is helping to orchestrate “protests” against the very actions taken to bring the economy back from the brink to which these financial institutions helped push it.