A 65% Estate Tax For Billionaires?

While Republicans work to again reduce the top federal estate tax rate to zero, Senator Bernie Saunders counters with an even more unlikely proposal: an estate tax with rates ranging from 40% (for estates of $3.5-$10 million) to 65% (for estates over $1 billion).

Joseph B. Thorndike comments, "It’s one thing to ask rich people to pay more of the cost of government. It’s another thing entirely to tell those rich people that they are just too damn rich."

The estate-tax charitable deduction now allows wealth to stay in the family by flowing tax free into family foundations. To redistribute billionaire estates through taxation, the deduction would have to go. Can you see that happening?