‘Windfall’ for Rich?

* “What Makes America Exceptional,” by Gregg Easterbrook (Opinion, Sept. 17), which seeks to justify the death tax, was truly alarming. Claiming that a repeal of the death tax would create an American aristocracy, Easterbrook writes that if there had been no estate tax in 1997, the 3,000 families he categorizes as the super-rich “would have received, on average, a $6.7-million windfall.”

Since when is it a “windfall” when the government allows citizens to keep money or property that has already been subject to the income tax and may very well have been subject to a capital gains tax as well? My dictionary defines “windfall” as “any unexpected financial gain or stroke of luck.” Does Easterbrook really believe it is a “stroke of luck” for citizens to be allowed to keep money or property that they or their families have earned and that has already been taxed at least once and possibly twice? Since when did our income become property of the government, such that it is a “stroke of luck” if we are allowed to keep some of it?

JOHN R. FUCHS

Pacific Palisades