U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s news release today sounds like a rollout of her 2010 campaign theme.

Of course, you could also call someone who votes most of the time against the leadership of the party who nominated her a Republican.

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You could also call her a liar.

There’s no other way to characterize her remarks about the need for estate tax relief for small businesses and farmers. To repeat just some of the facts: No spouse, however rich, must pay a dime of estate tax on inheritance received from his or her spouse. Beginning Jan. 1 on other inheritances, the first $3.5 million is untaxed, which effectively means a couple can effectively leave $7 million to family without taxes due.

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The tax code includes numerous benefits for small businesses and farmers in installment payments of taxes at lower interest rates. In years of searching, nobody has yet found a farm sold on account of estate taxes. The $3.5 million exclusion can be ratcheted up to  higher levels by a raft of estate planning techniques. The repeal of the estate tax would benefit only the very wealthiest people, but that tiny number of Americans control immense wealth and legislators.

A Congressional Budget Office study found a grand total of 65 farm estates nationwide would have owed estate taxes in a 2000 test year under the expanded exemption set to take effect in 2009. In 2004, only 440 estates consisted primarily of farm and family business assets subject to taxes.

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Yes, family-owned businesses face some estate tax burdens. Doesn’t seem to have hurt the Waltons much. Warren Buffet supports the estate tax. But, boy, would they hit a jackpot if it went away. Which probably explains the Waltons’ affection for Lincoln’s representation. If she’d only tell the truth about the number of people her tax “relief” would affect. A few hundred in Arkansas each year, at most.

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