Mitch Albom

When I was a kid, I made the mistake of telling my mother, who had refused to buy me an expensive toy, that she could afford it because she had bought herself clothes the week before.

“Don’t you ever — ever! — tell your parents what they should do with their money!” she admonished.

She then went on to detail how poor my folks were growing up, how hard they had worked, and how I still had toys I barely played with.

She was right about all of it.

Her words echoed last week — especially the ones about other people’s money — when I heard Hillary Clinton in Detroit trying to shame Donald Trump over his plan to eliminate the estate tax.

“If you believe that he’s as wealthy as he says,” she said, killing the tax “would save the Trump family $4 billion. ... “Just think about what we could do with those $4 billion.”

I wish my mother were still alive. Just so she could say, “It’s not yours to think about.”

I have always been against the estate tax, or “death tax” as it is now known. I was against it when I had no money. I am against it now, having money. I remain against it even though no one in my extended family is wealthy enough to benefit from its elimination — and thus, it won’t affect a dollar I might inherit.

I am against it for this reason: It taxes money that’s already been taxed. That simple. If the money was earned working, it was already shaved by income tax. If that money was put into a house, it was shaved by property taxes and, upon sale, possibly a capital gains tax, too. The federal government takes its taxes, the state government takes its taxes, in some cases the city government takes its taxes.

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Then, when you die, and you wish to leave what is left to your family, it needs to be taxed again?

“Just think about what we could do … ” Clinton said.

Exactly. The whole image of the government rubbing its hands as you take your dying breath should creep you out. Look, I am no big fan of Trump or Clinton. Like many Americans, I want to jump on a spaceship when I see our choices.

But the estate tax is its own issue. Always has been. Our founding fathers didn’t invent it. It existed in brief and tiny forms in the 1800s but essentially was a 20th-century development. Since then it’s been all over the map, from 10% to 77%. A few years ago, thanks to President George W. Bush, it disappeared altogether for 12 months. Then it roared back.

This proves it can — and will — be altered by politicians. So people who point to the current $5.45-million individual exemption and say, “I don’t have that much, why should I care?” are missing the point.

That exemption can easily change, and if Clinton gets her way, it quickly will. Her own tax plan proposes cutting the $5.4 million down to $3.5 million and raising the rate to 45%, according to a Tax Foundation analysis.

She conveniently did not mention this in Detroit.

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Here is the longtime argument for the estate tax: to avoid too much wealth staying in the hands of too few families. But why? It’s not stolen money. It’s earned money. Taxed money. Why shouldn’t someone who works hard and achieves — things both candidates keep saying they celebrate — be told, “Sorry, you achieved too much. Give it back. Your kids can’t have it.”

Why? So the government — the most wasteful agency this side of a roulette wheel — can spend it instead? According to the most recent analysis, the feds wasted $43 billion in 2014 alone. They really need more?

I hate to sound as cranky and old as this may read. But the estate tax issue is pretty cut and dried.

You shouldn’t need the horror stories of kids having to sell the family farm to pay it, or of houses needed to be liquidated or heirlooms auctioned off.

For what? Clinton, defying my mother’s warning, started spending Trump’s death money from her podium: his estate tax, she boasted, could pay for 47,000 veterans to get a college degree, or a year of health care coverage for nearly 3 million children. (Notice when politicians hype a tax, it’s always for veterans and children, never a $600 hammer.)

This is dangerous and incendiary stuff. If we start getting excited about dead people’s money, it won’t stop at an artificial cutoff. Besides, it’s just wrong. It’s not ours to spend. It’s been through the tax ringer.

And, by the way, not everyone who has earned money behaves like Donald Trump. But lots of politicians, when it comes to taxes, behave like Clinton.

“Think about what we could do … ” she said.

I am. That’s what scares me.

Mitch Albom is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter @MitchAlbom.

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