The federal estate tax boils people’s blood on both sides of the aisle, but often for the wrong reasons. Democrats argue that the rich shouldn’t be able to create family dynasties by concentrating wealth. Republicans argue that the estate tax generates less than 1 percent of federal revenues and so might as well be abolished.

Neither of these arguments gets to the heart of why the estate tax is so dangerous. What Democrats miss is that the rich have available to them all sorts of accounting and legal tools to avoid, or at least mitigate, their tax bills. Lowering the estate tax exemption will not take more from the rich. It will simply reach into the pockets of the not-so-rich who are less able to avoid it.