Neither of the candidates in the St. Louis debates really addressed the question of the death tax properly.

Gore seems to have a problem telling the truth. He does not have any plan at all to eliminate the death tax.

Bush doesn't understand that the plan he is supporting only gets rid of the inheritance tax after many people have died. It's a ten year phase-in, and many of the people it is supposed to benefit will be long gone, well before the phase-in is completed -- if it ends up being phased out in the end at all.

However, the real problem with the death tax is not, as Bush suggested, that it taxes the person who dies, twice. The real problem with the death tax is that it punishes the children of that person. It punishes the children of those who earned the money and developed the wealth. In a free society, people's property and financial resources belong to them and they have a right to pass it on to their heirs in any manner they see fit. It is not the government's money.

If we really believe in strong families, we should not be allowing the strength of a family to be challenged by confiscation of the family's hard earned wealth by politicians who didn't contribute a penny to that wealth and who have already taxed it.

Mr. Bush needs to realize that dead men don't pay inheritance taxes, living children do and before they die, people have the right to be confident that they can assign the fruits of their labor to their children.

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