By Chris Ekstrom, candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, District 13

Imagine a special federal tax that targeted baby formula and diapers. Pretend that someone proposed to tax these items at a higher rate than say, cigarettes or whiskey. For what possible reason? Because items for babies represented a parent transferring wealth (on which he has already been taxed multiple times) from one generation to the next. Smokes and booze are things you usually enjoy yourself, and rarely (I hope) pass on to your children. Ranches and farms, however, deserve to be passed along unbroken, from one generation to the next.

Or imagine a tax that targeted private school tuition, athletic equipment for kids, or clothes that came in children’s sizes. The same principle applies: even though you were taxed on the money you’re using, the government insists on taxing it just one more time—because you’re paying it forward to your children. The Death Tax punishes such natural, healthy parental stewardship.

I think it’s safe to say that whoever backed a baby formula tax wouldn’t get far in politics. Not even if he promised that such a tax only targeted one group of Americans—say the upper middle class, or even the “one percent.” Not even if its backers said that the goal of the law was to attack “inequality.” The Death Tax, invented by socialists, punishes thrifty and responsible ranchers, farmers, and other small business builders, in the name of cutting everyone down to size. As we have come to see over the last several centuries, socialism offers equal opportunity misery. Just look at Venezuela or Cuba now.

Most Texans can see the profound unfairness of a Death Tax on private property that has already been taxed (and often more than once). Texas, wisely, has forbidden a state income tax. (Hurrah!) But real estate taxes take a major toll even with our sensible rural exemptions. Amarillo groans under excessive and unreasonable property taxes, to fund “Robin Hood” giveaways to sanctuary cities educating illegal immigrants they’ve invited in.

Taxes don’t just raise funds for the government. They give it a lever to control how people spend their own money, and shove them in one direction rather than another. Texans don’t take very kindly to that. Why do our politicians keep forgetting that?

The government shouldn’t punish citizens for using their wealth in the most natural, wholesome, and Biblical way we can imagine: looking out for their own flesh and blood. Nor should the Feds be encouraging people to use their money instead on more selfish or frivolous purposes. Uncle Sam should not be in the reverse mortgage business, pushing folks to spend their children’s inheritances.

That’s wrong, isn’t it?

So why does the federal government impose a Death Tax? Why did George W. Bush break his solemn promise to repeal it permanently? If he’d kept his word, the Death Tax would have died in 2005.

The Death Tax punishes people for saving rather than spending, penalizes them for looking to the future instead of the present. In fact, it spanks parents for taking loving thought for their children and grandchildren. For stewarding a ranch or farm, or preserving a family home that holds old memories from one generation to the next.

Can anything be more perverse, anti-family, and basically un-American? That’s why I favor a total and complete repeal of all federal death taxes. We already tax Americans every time they breathe. Can we at least restrain ourselves from taxing folks when they die?