>>If we think it is wrong to take a family farm away from the family when the farm is worth $2m, or $3m or up to $5m
>>then why are we forcing more successful families to suffer the loss of the their farm?
>>
>>To raise tax money that is a rounding error in the federal budget?
>>It is simply not a significant source of revenue.
>>
>>So what is the point? Punish the rich?
>>
>>That is exactly the point. It is greed and envy. The government seems to thinks that everything that everything that we earn belongs to them and that we are lucky if they allow us to keep a portion of it. The so-called 99% accuse the so-called 1% of being greedy. Really, it is the other way around. Many of the 99% seem to think that they are entitled to the fruits of someone else's labor because, in their opinion, that someone else has too much.
>
>"Too much"
>Hmmm
>I am not religious, but I seem to recall one of the ten commandments about ENVY.
>
>>It is not just family farms that suffer because of inheritance tax. It is small businesses of all types.
>
>Ah, you saw through my example.
>The "family farm" is no more sacrosanct than a large carpet cleaning business, a chain of restaurants or barrels full of copper pennies.
>If private property has any meaning, then the OWNER of that property gets to decide what to do with it.
>Taxing it away from the family with "too much" at death is just as odious as robbing "rich" people in broad daylight.
>
>Notice how the definition of those who have "too much" is comfortably outside the range that the proponents could expect to have.
>
>Lets put the shoe on the other foot, and let people in the world's poorest countries vote on how much money should be taken from the "Tax the rich" advocates.
>I wonder how they would feel about that?

Not taking a position on the larger issue but family farms are not the same as carpet cleaning businesses and restaurant chains. Even though they have been largely supplanted by huge agribusinesses they still have a powerful hold on the American psyche. Like cowboys, they remain part of our self-image.