Let Them Eat Estate Tax Repeal

What’s the best way to help the roughly 12 million residents who live in the states impacted by Hurricane Katrina, including hundreds of thousands of families who are now displaced and homeless?

Repeal the estate tax, which in 2003 was paid by a whopping 709 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama combined. That’s the line from the American Family Business Institute, the “nation’s leading advocacy group for death tax repeal.” On Monday, they issued a release saying “it is entirely appropriate for the Senate to focus all its energy on disaster relief” — then called on the Senate to “immediately and retroactively” repeal the estate tax for victims of Hurricane Katrina. How thoughtful.