Bill for Virginia's Estate Tax Repeal Coming Due

Two seemingly unrelated events happened this month:

• Virginia lays off 929 workers
• One of the wealthiest men in Virginia passes away

I'm not including the man's name here, because while I have great respect for his achievements, I'm not referring to his accomplished life -- I'm simply noting his estate of $2.3 billion.

This is where we come to a third event that happened three years ago:

• 2006: Virginia repeals the estate tax

In a time of economic crisis, how much revenue that could've preserved jobs have we given up? With even a meager estate tax, this one estate alone would've delivered hundreds of millions of dollars. And unlike income, sales or property taxes, it's revenue that wouldn't have hurt working families or slowed down economic growth.

Instead, the Virginia General Assembly and Gov. Tim Kaine decided that money is better off padding already-enormous estates. You really have to wonder. Whose interests were they looking out for?