The Estate Tax Fight

Mickey pulls an impressive - and probably accurate - triple flip:

I'm not sure that Democrats who want to preserve the estate tax shouldn't secretly like the new Republican position of 35% after a $5 milllion exemption. That's low enough that it might actually stick--Republicans would have a hard time ginning up "double taxation" outrage at a 35% rate. A relatively high exemption would also minimize the need to engage in elaborate estate planning transactions to avoid the tax. All those lawyers and accountants and life insurance salesmen constitute a waste of social energy that extends way beyond a few thousand families and is surely the tax's greatest cost.