Tax Fairness

Mort Kondracke:

"To me, the most sensible first step to fiscal sanity would be to reform, but not repeal, the estate tax, which could save as much as $400 billion over 10 years. But Republicans are wedded to the idea of repealing what they call the 'death tax,' even though it applies to only the richest 0.5 percent of taxpayers."

What is the reason here? We should have this tax because it applies to only the richest 0.5%? That doesn't make any sense.

It seems to me we should be very unhappy about any tax base that does not apply to every one.