GOP pushes to repeal the estate tax: Misplaced priorities and bad politics

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this week on a bill to repeal the federal estate tax, a 40% levy on the heirs of estates worth over $10.9 million per couple and $5.43 million per individual.

Given the White House will almost certainly veto any estate tax bill that gets through Congress, the vote is largely a symbolic one. But symbolism has meaning, especially in politics.

Many conservatives refer to the estate tax as the "death tax" and say the law hurts the families of small business owners, notably farmers, and amounts to a "double tax" on income already levied by Uncle Sam. Liberals say the estate tax is necessary to prevent "a permanent aristocracy" as Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) told The Associated Press.

The reality is the estate tax will only hit about 5,400 estates this year, or roughly 0.2% of all deaths in the U.S., according to The AP. Without offsetting spending cuts, which the House bill does not have, a repeal of the estate tax would add $269 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

While repealing the estate tax certainly appeals to the Republican base, you have to wonder about the political wisdom of this vote, given the current economic backdrop: Income inequality is at its highest levels since the 1920s, the average U.S. CEO makes around 300 times the average worker, upward mobility has stagnated (along with wages) and many Americans increasingly feel the "American Dream" is out of their reach.

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The fact the House GOP is voting to appeal the estate tax the same week thousands of workers across the country are marching to get the minimum wage increased suggests the "Party of Lincoln" is out of sync with the times.

The GOP seems to be handing the Democrats a gift with this vote, symbolic or not. More so because the presumptive Democratic candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, isn't exactly a pauper. In fact, she's vulnerable of being charged with hypocrisy for saying she is a "champion" of the working class when she's paid six-figures for a single speech, uses the Clinton Foundation to avoid paying taxes and "usually requires those who pay her six-figure fees for speeches to also provide a private jet for transportation—only a $39 million, 16-passenger Gulfstream G450 or larger will do,” as The WSJ editorial page reports.

Aaron Task is Editor-at-Large of Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter at @aarontask or email him at atask@yahoo-inc.com.