I have never seen such stupidity in my life as I did in the editorial in the Washington Post today.  The paper actually wrote this: "Bernie Sanders's estate tax plan would reduce the federal debt and help even the playing field."

They made this nonsensical argument:

Mr. Sanders wants to roll back the GOP reform – and more.  He would insist that estates worth more than $3.5 million pay at least 45 percent on money over that threshold, with higher tax brackets scaled to the size of the fortune in question.  The rate would be 77 percent – the top rate from 1941 to 1976 – on estates worth more than $1 billion.  Because such a plan would spur estate planners to seek legally creative ways to avoid inheritance taxes, Mr. Sanders would also close some loopholes currently used as tax avoidance vehicles.  Mr. Sanders estimates that his plan would raise $315 billion over a decade.  

If high estate taxes level the playing field and reduce federal debt, why didn't the high estate taxes and the low exemption work to do that in the past? 

The Washington Post editors pay lip service the idea that loopholes would be closed, but they haven't the slightest idea how determined the wealthy are to find them.  If one is closed off, they will find others.  They haven't noticed what the wealthy have done over decades to make sure their heirs would not lose everything and that their businesses would survive.  It is appalling that a family that builds up wealth over decades from its small business would be compelled to turn over the bulk of the money to the government for politicians and bureaucrats to spend as they like while they pretend they want to help the poor.  The Sanders tax would destroy jobs and take away economic opportunities for everyone. 

A couple of examples are the Kennedys and the Rockefellers.  How come so many generations live off previous earnings if high taxes supposedly had worked to level the playing field?

It is truly astonishing how greedy the government and politicians are and how the complicit journalists support that greed. 

Several of the richest counties in the United States are around Washington, D.C., and every policy the Democrats support is there to enable them to get richer. 

The "rich" pay huge taxes throughout their lives.  These include income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and all the other taxes and fees the greedy government confiscates from them for their unending appetite for spending. 

The economic ignorance of journalists is embarrassing.  Capitalism is the best way to allow people to move up the economic ladder.  Socialism makes the government and the connected richer and makes the rest of us poorer. 

It should be noted that most of the people in the top 1%, 5%, and 10% tax brackets today were not in those categories a short time ago.  The owner of the Washington Post was not in the "tippy top" a short time ago, yet he is the richest man in the world today.  It is a shame he allows the economically illiterate journalists at the Post to spread the garbage they write as if they knew something.