By Dick Patten, Presiden
American Family Business Institute

Most people concerned about the Federal estate tax -- the Death Tax – know that it is being gradually decreased each year until 2010, when it disappears. Then, in 2011, it is scheduled to spring back to life larger than ever. Last year the Senate came within just three votes of making repeal permanent. But now Democrats hold both houses of Congress and will do their all to preserve the Death Tax.

Considering that fact, is the fight to repeal the Death Tax over? Should just we fold our tents and accept this unjust and witless policy as a fact of life and death? Are we defeated?

To do justice to my answer, I would have to raise the word NO in letters as tall as the Empire State Building or shout it at an ear-splitting volume. Lacking those options, I’ll offer a more temperate response: Not only will we continue to fight, but we will fight with more energy and smarter strategies than ever before. Our mission — and our only mission — at AFBI is repeal of the Death Tax. When we succeed, we will close our doors. I fully intend to see that we put ourselves out of business.

In the past year or so major publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, CQ Weekly, Associated Press — publications that collectively reach tens of millions of readers talked about the AFBI and its efforts. Our principal work is, of course, with members of Congress and their senior staffs. But we also know that it’s critically important to educate the public about this issue. From a historical standpoint, I think it’s regrettable that public opinion carries so much weight in policymaking. Let me explain what I mean.

When the American Founders wrote the Constitution, their idea of a republic followed the thinking of Edmund Burke. When Burke was elected to Parliament in 1774, Britain was embroiled in a controversy over “instructions” to members of Parliament. One side thought members were obligated to follow the wishes — the “instructions” — of the electorate. Burke disagreed, and he delivered a speech to the electors of Bristol, his home district, to make his position clear.

“Your representative owes you,” said Burke, “not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” George Will made the same point in a speech just a few years ago:

The original idea of the republic … was representation, and the point of representation is that the people do not decide issues; they decide who will decide. In a republic, the question is not whether the elite shall rule; it is which elite shall rule, and the task of governments is to get consent to good government.

But that view of a republic was upended by President Andrew Jackson. Speaking to a joint session of Congress in 1833 about national banking legislation, he expressed a view that came to be known as “Jacksonian democracy”:

Coming as you do … immediately from the people and the states by election, and possessing the fullest opportunity to know their sentiments, the present Congress will be sincerely solicitous to carry into full and fair effect the will of their constituents in regard to this institution.

I make this brief historical digression for a couple of reasons.

First, today’s political world is obviously Jacksonian; members of Congress constantly read opinion polls and test the waters to learn which ideas will keep them afloat on the sea of public opinion. I think we’d have better government if our elected representatives thought more like Edmund Burke and the American Founders. But we must play the cards we’re dealt, and the cards are plainly Jacksonian.

Second, we need to understand this broader historical context if we are to fight intelligently on narrower fronts like the Death Tax. Oddly enough, public opinion is on our side. When asked in surveys whether they favor repeal of the Death Tax, between 60 and 70 percent of Americans consistently answer yes. Why, then, does Congress not heed their opinions and do away with the Death Tax?

I suspect that the answer lies in how people experience the effects of this tax. As an abstract proposition, any reasonable person sees its unfairness and opposes its reinstatement in 2011. Even though only a minority of Americans pay this tax directly, tens of millions more are unaware that they are hit indirectly with its consequences. When a family owned business is shut down to pay the Death Tax, hundreds of employees might pay the price in lost jobs.

For that reason, we must adopt a strategy to educate more citizens by framing the issue in this larger context. That is why you see the tagline on our publications: “Defending the American Dream.” We fight to repeal the Death Tax not just on behalf of those taxpayers who directly pay the tax, but also on behalf of the many others who unknowingly bear its unseen burdens. We fight the Death Tax because it contradicts one of the most basic principles of our free society: the sanctity of property rights, including the right to bequeath property to one’s heirs.

Educating the public on this fundamental truth is an enormous task. Communications consultants estimate that the average American is exposed to more than 3,000 messages a day. It is in that buzzing marketplace of ideas that we must compete for attention.

Before the Senate voted in June of 2006 on a bill to repeal the Death Tax, we ran thousands of ads on television and thousands more on radio. We sent tens of thousands of direct mail letters to seniors and other voters likely to contact their senators on this issue. We sponsored more than a million phone calls. I personally appeared on scores of radio talk shows that reached millions of listeners.

Complementing this targeted media outreach, we mobilized scores of allied organizations and worked closely with Senate leaders to build a coalition of legislative allies. As a result of these efforts, the Senate voted for the first time in years on repeal of the Death Tax. And as I noted earlier, we came within just three votes of succeeding.

Now that the Democrats control the House and Senate, we harbor no illusions about another such vote in the immediate future. Even so, we know that before 2010, another legislative opportunity will certainly arise. We don’t intend to sit passively by and wait for it. We intend to prepare for it on a variety of fronts, including the following:

• Maintaining Death Tax repeal as a priority on the Republican minority’s agenda, especially in the Senate;
• Holding strategy sessions with the Death Tax Repeal Working Group, a coalition of more than 50 tax-fighting organizations;
• Drafting legislation for the House and Senate to institute neutral revenue scoring in the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is notorious for data analysis biased against tax cuts of any kind.
• Targeting presidential and congressional candidates in the 2008 elections and providing talking points for those who support Death Tax repeal;
• Redesigning our website, nodeathtax.org, to include a greater variety of economic studies, political analysis, legislative updates, moral arguments, and stories that show how the Death Tax harms family-owned businesses and farms;
• Establishing the American Family Business Foundation, a tax-exempt educational arm to expand our outreach.
• Organizing a Political Action Committee that will give AFBI more one-on-one contact with members of the House and Senate, sponsor fundraising events for our allies, and raise AFBI’s profile among members of Congress.

In closing let me return — with emphasis — to a point I made earlier. AFBI is a “single issue” organization, but only in the sense that our sole mission is to promote repeal of the Death Tax. In a larger sense, no one issue stands in isolation from the wider context of the principles at the foundations of our free society.

Anyone could oppose the Death Tax from the standpoint of their personal financial interests, of course. But when we at AFBI characterize our work as “Defending the American Dream,” that isn’t merely a slogan. It is our pledge of fidelity to a set of principles, and we are wholeheartedly committed to defending them.

The blessings of liberty you and I enjoy today are a priceless legacy bequeathed to us by our American Founders who understood the cause of freedom. They believed in that cause so deeply, they were willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create the greatest preserve of freedom ever known on earth.

I believe that defending their legacy today is more than a duty: It is a privilege and an honor, and it is in that spirit that we at AFBI fight for repeal of the Death Tax.