An obligation for America's wealthy

An obligation for America's wealthy

By Howard Behar
June 8, 2006

This week, the U.S. Senate will take up the question of abolishing the federal estate tax. Repealing the tax would cost $1 trillion in lost revenue over the next two decades.

It is troubling that Congress would abolish a tax on deceased multimillionaires and billionaires without a plan to get our nation out of debt. But I am even more distressed that Congress would place a higher value on unlimited inherited wealth than investing in real opportunity.

My support for maintaining the estate tax comes down to three simple propositions. First, no one can become wealthy in this country without the help of others and the remarkable “opportunity society” we have built.

Second, the most important thing we can pass on to our children is education, not wealth. Finally, those of us who have accumulated the kind of wealth that puts us in the top 1 percent of wealthy households have a moral obligation to re-fertilize the garden that made our individual wealth possible.

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Behar is the former president of Starbucks International. He wrote this article for United for a Fair Economy (www.faireconomy.org).


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060608/news_lz7e8behar.html

with him, because the repeal is dead for now.

Paris is just gonna have to pay her damn taxes.