Rep. Brad Sherman is dead wrong about the death tax

Earlier today, we highlighted California Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat who recently proclaimed that his party's biggest motivation to support the estate death tax was to redistribute wealth in America:

Instead of correcting his constituent by pointing out that wealth in America is to be earned and not "distributed," Sherman went on  to falsely claim that 1% of Americans hold 90% of the nation's wealth.  He goes on to brag about his support for a "significant estate tax," which he claims is a great source of government revenue and prevents "multi-generational, almost nobility levels of wealth."

I have to take personal offense to Rep. Sherman's ignorant assumption that the only people affected by the death tax are wealthy "nobility"-types who are so rich that they wouldn't even notice if Uncle Sam shaved off some of their already-taxed life savings before it's transferred down to their posterity.  My family has never been rich -- far from it, actually.  But I'm proud to say that my grandfather was a successful small business owner during his lifetime and managed two local businesses. I'm not proud to say, however, that thanks to the death tax, my grandfather's business died with him.

My grandfather was an entrepreneur, an employer, a friend, devoted husband and loving father of four when he died of a sudden heart attack before I was even born.  But instead of passing his successful business down to his eager sons, my widowed grandmother was forced to sell it off.  You see, for a small business owner who lays so much of his/her own personal fortune on the line to grow a prosperous business, there just wasn't enough money left over to pay the tax man when my grandfather passed.

So to Congressman Sherman and so many others who wrongfully look at my grandfather's life and success and see little more than some extra tax revenue and a means to redistribute the fruits of his labor, I can't stress enough how incredibly wrong you are.  And I thoroughly believe that being forced to sell off one of my grandfather's greatest legacies in order to redistribute wealth to others who never dared to make their own is not what this country is all about.