Nightline: Daily E-mail (2/15)

W A S H I N G T O N, Feb. 15 -- Perhaps you play this game, too. My brother and I have had this conversation too many times to count.

It goes like this: What would you do if you won the lottery? If you were suddenly filthy rich? How would you spend your money? Would you quit your job? What would you buy? Where would you live? Where would you travel?

The conversation really gets interesting with this next set of questions: what charities would you support? And how much would you leave to your children? For a very small percentage of Americans these are not hypothetical questions. And these questions aren't so easy, or probably quite so much fun to answer.

The repeal of the estate tax — or the death tax, as opponents call it — seemed only a couple of weeks ago, likely to sail through Congress and be passed into law. Last year Congress passed an estate tax reform bill, but President Clinton vetoed it. But this year, a veto seems unlikely. The estate tax repeal is a major component in the tax cuts that Bush campaigned on.

But now the waters appear to be getting at least somewhat choppy for this bill's smooth sailing. First, the director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives said a repeal could undercut another administration priority: encouraging private contributions to charities, religious and non-religious, that help the poor.

Now a group of over 100 wealthy Americans has signed a petition opposing the repeal. The petition will be published in newspapers this weekend. These are some of the wealthiest people in the country, even the world, George Soros among them. Bill Gates' father, William Gates Sr., who runs his son and daughter-in-law's enormous charitable foundation, is spearheading this effort.

One hundred years ago Andrew Carnegie wrote that "great sums" bequeathed to the children of the wealthy "work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients." Some of today's wealthiest Americans seem to agree with him. Perhaps with that sentiment in mind, both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have said publicly that they intend to leave only a tiny fraction of their fortunes to their children and to give the rest away.