Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the usually conservative editor-in-chief of US News and World Report, had an editorial this week about the estate tax. In the 2000 campaign Bush talked a lot about getting rid of this "death tax" which he claimed would put family farms and small businesses under. The funny thing is, that's not how it works. The first S1.5 million of an estate is exempted, and there are no examples of what Bush described ever happening. Bush and the Republican Congress began reducing the estate tax in the 2001 budget, and the House has a motion to repeal the tax altogether. This will cost close to a trillion dollars over ten years. Democrats have proposed a compromise that raises the exemption amount to $3.5 M per person. That sound more reasonable that repealing the tax. The article has more numbers and some good background on the issue.