In addition to Grover Norquist’s excellent piece this week on Warren Buffett, death tax predator, check out Tim Carney’s column on former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), whose view on the death tax has changed dramatically since he became head of the American Council of Life Insurers.

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) spent $9.6 million on lobbying last year and is on pace to spend more than $10 million this year — and that’s on top of the lobbying efforts by its individual members, the life insurance companies. Why? One life insurance industry lobbyist estimated last year that the industry gets about 10 percent of its business through estate planning.

ACLI now gives more to Democrats than to Republicans, and the reason is the Death Tax. It’s all about the life insurance industry and its lobbyists, trying to preserve the tax that is its lifeblood:

Warren Buffet, Kimberly Dorgan (wife of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.) and Frank Keating are helping end the threat to their industry and in the process assuring that future generations of insurance salesmen and estate planners will thrive because the death tax lives.