Gates has gotten at least 120 millionaires to sign a petition opposing Bush's estate-tax repeal, on the grounds that it would "enrich the heirs of America's millionaires and billionaires, while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet." Buffett didn't sign Gates' petition, however -- because he doesn't think it goes far enough in denouncing Bush's Robin Hood-in-reverse tax plan.

Buffett's reasoning is must reading for dithering Democrats who haven't figured out how to fight the Bush juggernaut and defend the estate tax, which Bush has masterfully renamed the "death tax." Estate tax repeal, Buffett says, "would be a terrible mistake," comparable to "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics. We would consider that as absolute folly in terms of athletic competition.

"We have come closer to a true meritocracy than anywhere else around the world," Buffett continued. "You have mobility, so people with talents can be put to the best use. Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit."

It's remarkable that the most stirring defense of the progressive tax system, and American meritocracy, should come from the world's fourth wealthiest man. Maybe that will insulate him from charges of "class warfare." In any case, perhaps Buffett's attack on Bush's proposed repeal of the estate tax will breathe some life into the demoralized, strangely listless Democrats (the Gilded Age meets the Gelded Age), who don't appear to understand how crucial it is to beat back Bush's brazen tax proposal.

That proposal, which gives a staggering 43 percent of its largess to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans (though they pay less than a quarter of the taxes), is the foundation of his new world order, a bold attempt to shape the nation's social, economic and political dynamics on behalf of wealthy conservatives for many years to come. Republicans have wailed and gnashed their teeth in the wilderness for almost a decade now, watching as President Clinton made Democrats the party of fiscal responsibility and economic vitality. Clinton paid down the Reagan-Bush deficit by raising taxes slightly on the top brackets, while slowly but steadily (even a little stealthily) expanding programs for the poor, working and middle class, delivering almost $70 billion over five years with such programs as the expanded earned income tax credit, new child health programs and extra subsidies and tax breaks for college tuition.

Now, with surpluses looming, a new president has no excuse for failing to tackle the remaining problems of our winner-take-all economy -- shoring up Medicare and Social Security before the baby boomers stampede toward retirement, fixing our broken health insurance system, and expanding and reforming Head Start and other education programs for poor kids. No excuse, that is, unless he gives away the surplus to his wealthy friends, risking enormous deficits in the process.

Support for Bush's vast tax cut seemed to come out of nowhere. During the primary campaign, polls showed voters preferred Sen. John McCain's deficit reduction plan to Bush's tax cut. Then the slumping economy gave an economic-stimulus fig leaf to the plan. But it wasn't until the Dems inexplicably rolled over, announcing they would be willing to support an $800 billion tax cut (Vice President Al Gore had proposed only a $500 billion cut), that it began to seem inevitable. That sense reached its climax when Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan -- the maestro, the oracle, the world's most powerful man, the guy who defeated the last President Bush, legend has it, by waiting too long to cut interest rates -- backed a big tax cut three weeks ago.

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