This is a typical election year ploy. Democrats offered amendments that would have reduced the tax rates on such estates but the Republicans would not consider any reduction of the rate of cuts. Clearly they want the veto this election year.

During the debate on the floor of the Senate, proponents of the cut cited almost tearfully how, when hard working farmers die, the "death tax" prevents them from passing their farm to their son who likely had farmed with his father for many years.

Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas was quoted by The New York Times as calling the tax "a cancer … It’s wrong. We want to get rid of it totally."

But let’s hear what the farmers have to say. Robert Carlson, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, writes in the North Dakota Union Farmer, "Supporters of this bill claim that estate taxes unfairly hinder generational transfers, place huge financial burdens on heirs, and will ultimately lead to the demise of family agriculture. The truth is that repeal of the estate tax is not about relief for family farms or for small businesses at all.

"American agriculture … is faced with a federal farm policy that is based on … a marketplace that is dominated by a few huge multinational corporations that control the economic fate of rural America. … There is no doubt that American producers are besieged, but estate taxes are not the culprit. Only a handful of the very large farming operations are affected by the estate taxes."

To be taxable an estate must exceed an exemption of $675,000. But because farm land, buildings and implements have become so costly, several years ago Congress increased farmers’ and small business’ estate exemptions to $1.3 million.

President Carlson added that even under the old tax exemption of the 43,000 estates large enough to be taxed in 1997, only 400, a little over 1 percent, were farm estates. And now, with the increased exemption of $1.3 million, that number will be reduced even more.