As our legislators grapple with a billion-dollar budget deficit, the debate too often plays off taxpayers from tax users. The fact is we are all taxpayers and tax users.

We use taxes for K-12 education, for community colleges and our public universities and for public safety and public health. These are some of the elements of a civil society that engender a responsible citizenry and the protection of private property. They make it possible for people to prosper and to accumulate wealth and enable the economy to thrive.

We cannot maintain the foundation of a civil society if we are determined to starve public services. And we cannot continue to lean on middle-class and low-income families to carry the heaviest burden for state revenue. We need public revenue that comes from those entities that have benefited the most and accumulated the most in our society.

Unfortunately, a recent state Supreme Court decision further tips the scale of taxes onto middle-class families. The Supreme Court decided that our state’s estate tax must be linked to the federal estate tax.

The problem is that George W. Bush (who knows something about inherited wealth) and Congress have gradually repealed the federal estate tax. So with the Supreme Court ruling, our state must pay back “excessive” estate tax payments made in the past three years.

The chief complainant against Washington’s estate tax was the estate of Wylie Hemphill. Hemphill was a great beneficiary of public services in our state. He went to the University of Washington and received both his undergraduate and law degrees there.

So the taxpayers of our state subsidized his education and his start on earning. He began practicing law and then took over his family mining and oil businesses. He left an estate valued at more than $3.5 million. His descendants argued that the estate was overcharged $30,000 in taxes because the state did not adhere to the federal law put in place by the Bush administration. That $30,000 is less than 1 percent of the value of the Hemphill estate.

Although $30,000 doesn’t seem like much, when all the refunds from the Supreme Court ruling are totaled, the people of our state have to “pay back” more than $156 million to the heirs of these wealthy estates. Further, as a result of this ruling, each year in the future the people will lose more than $100 million in revenues.

Don Root, the CEO of GM Nameplate in Seattle, can always be counted on to oppose the estate tax. He, too, was educated at the UW and graduated with a degree in business administration. So the taxpayers gave him his head start in business. He did not start GM Nameplate. He got his ownership the old-fashioned way – he bought into GM Nameplate in the late 1970s. But now he wants to ensure that his four sons get the entire business, worth at least $50 million with 1,000 employees, free and clear without paying any taxes.

Talk about enhancing the concentration of wealth and privilege!

The state’s largest paper, The Seattle Times, regularly rants against the estate tax. The Blethen family has successfully maintained control of the newspaper for more than 100 years, during which the estate tax has been in force. So they have figured out a way, through estate planning, to ensure ownership passed down through generations. That’s not so onerous. In fact, it ensures that the Blethens join all of us in paying for the greater good.

So let’s restore the estate tax as one important piece of funding our citizens’ expectations for high-quality public education, higher education, health care coverage and public safety. In the end game to balance the state’s budget, the Legislature should have the gumption and the common sense to reinstate the estate tax at a level that enhances former revenues. One proposal includes a tax of 20 percent on estates more than $5 million. This could bring in $177 million a year to fund education and health services.

Estate taxes are not taxes on people. They are taxes on a transfer of property from the deceased. Proponents of the estate tax realize that in our country, we are expected to earn our living, not have it handed to us.

Opponents, those who have already enjoyed the privileges of wealth as the children of the wealthy, want a free ride. Let’s not let them get into that limousine!

John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.