Last week, the Wall Street Journal noted that more than 250 current congressional candidates have signed a pledge to support elimination of the estate tax (which is levied on inheritance). 253 Republicans and 2 Democrats joined the repeal pledge, which is being circulated by the American Family Business Institute, an organization that also funds right-wing attacks on the estate tax.

Due to a Bush-era budgeting gimmick, there is no estate tax this year, but President Obama has proposed permanently setting it at the 2009 level of 45 percent with a $3.5 million exemption (which means the first $3.5 million is passed on entirely tax free). Conservatives, when not pushing for outright repeal, have coalesced around a plan put forth by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) that would cut the rate to 35 percent and raise the exemption to $5 million.

The common right-wing refrain when it comes to the estate tax is that it decimates scores of small businesses and family farms, preventing them from being passed on to the next generation. But as a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice points out, at the 2008 level (which is lower than the level Obama has proposed), just 0.6 percent of deaths resulted in any estate tax liability at all:

New data from the IRS show that only 0.6 percent of deaths in the U.S. in 2008 resulted in estate tax liability in 2009. (Estate taxes are usually filed during the year after the year in which a person dies.) The estate tax that would exist under President Obama’s tax plan would affect even fewer estates, which demonstrates why Congress should consider enacting a more robust estate tax than what President Obama proposes.

As CTJ put it, “one of the strangest things about politics in our nation’s capital is that the taxes that get attacked the most by lawmakers are those taxes which affect the fewest, and the richest, people.” Indeed, the data confirms that there is certainly no case for making the estate tax any lower than it was in 2009, and plenty of reasons to increase rates on some estates.

If it were permanently set at the the 2009 level, 62.5 percent of estate tax revenue would come from estates worth more than $20 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 35 percent of the revenue would come from estates worth between $5 million and $20 million. Repealing the tax, meanwhile, would cost $784 billion over the next ten years.

CTJ endorsed the estate tax plan put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which would create a more progressive estate tax, with higher marginal rates at $10 million and $50 million and a “billionaires surtax.” This kind of move makes sense, as income inequality in the country is the worst its been since 1928 and the richest households have been taking in a bigger and bigger share of the country’s total income.

Our guest blogger is Nick Bunker, Special Assistant with the Economic Policy team at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul (R) further revealed his anti-worker worldview when he stated his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act because some businesses might have to accept unions they don’t want. Paul’s statement is not surprising given his past comments on workplace issues. Unfortunately, ballot initiatives in four states are trying to implement Paul’s vision for a businesses veto over unions.

The initiatives, on the ballot in Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, and Utah, claim to protect workers’ rights by amending the state constitution to guarantee the “right to a secret ballot” in elections for employee representation. Here is the language from the Arizona’s Prop. 113:

SECTION 36. THE RIGHT TO VOTE BY SECRET BALLOT FOR EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION IS FUNDAMENTAL AND SHALL BE GUARANTEED WHERE LOCAL, STATE OR FEDERAL LAW PERMITS OR REQUIRES ELECTIONS, DESIGNATIONS OR AUTHORIZATIONS FOR EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION.

In reality, these initiatives are not about protecting workers — if they were they would prevent management from intimidating workers from making a free choice whether to join a union. Instead, they are an attempt at preempting the strengthening of unions through the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that passed in the House in previous Congresses, but has failed to secure 60 votes in the Senate.

EFCA would allow workers to form a union if more than 50 percent of workers signed a card stating their support for the union. Card check unionization has been used in the past – by more than half a million workers since 2003, in fact – and unions have been formed at companies such as Cingular Wireless, Dow Jones, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Kaiser Permanente under the process.

Supporters of these initiatives claim they are only standing up for the rights of workers who would be intimidated by into voting for unionization under a card check voting system. Unfortunately for them, the record shows that management is much more likely to use coercion and intimidation, so much so that the process for joining a union is totally biased against workers. And contrary to the claims of business, majority sign up does not lead to union intimidation. A study of majority sign-up efforts at the University of Illinois found “not a single incident of union misconduct.”

Furthermore, the ability of these initiatives to preempt federal laws is even doubted by the legislative director of the National Right to Work Committee, an anti-union organization.

Behind these state ballot initiatives is the Save Our Secret Ballot campaign, a national 501(c)(4) organization that has funded efforts to put these initiatives on state ballots. The campaign has not and does not intend to disclose its donors. But if the campaign’s board is any indication, the group is funded by the usual corporate suspects. Save Our Secret Ballot’s Advisory Board includes past and present Republican elected officials and representatives of right wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Goldwater Institute. Read more