I’m a little surprised at the weakness of Michael Kinsley’s reasoning in this op-ed.

Laffer invented the famous “Laffer Curve,” which did so much fiscal damage over the past generation by convincing people that tax cuts can pay for themselves. His reason was that taxes discourage the activity being taxed; cut the income tax, and people work harder. But this, surely, is an argument in favor of a tax on inherited wealth (if you accept the premise that we’ve got to tax something or other). Lowering a tax triggered by your death is not likely to pay for itself by encouraging you to die sooner, or more often.

But of course the tax is not triggered merely by death — a point that liberals have made in protesting the conservative relabeling of it as “the death tax.” It is triggered by leaving a sizable estate. Kinsley glancingly refers later to the possibility that the prospect of leaving an estate might motivate people to work harder. But he completely ignores what seems likely to be a bigger effect: that it would motivate wealthy people to spend less. You can agree or disagree with the case that the estate tax impedes capital formation. Ignoring the debate seems like a poor way of winning it.

P.S. Of the Forbes 400 Kinsley writes, “The large fortunes based on health care and pharmaceuticals would not exist if not for Medicare and Medicaid.” Is this claim remotely plausible?