The New York Times' Robert H. Frank presents a compelling thesis in tomorrow's paper in an article entitled "The Estate Tax: Efficient, Fair and Misunderstood." He writes,

Repealing the estate tax would reduce federal revenues by close to $1 trillion from 2012 to 2021, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This shortfall would require at least one of the following steps: raising income taxes, sales taxes or other taxes; further cuts in government services; or increasing the rate at which we borrow from the Chinese, Japanese and others. Additional borrowing would have to be repaid at market rates of interest, however, so the last option would also entail eventual tax increases or service cuts.

[...]

Would voters still favor repealing the estate tax if they took these repercussions into account? To find out, I asked the Survey Research Institute at Cornell to administer two versions of a national telephone survey. In the first, respondents were asked simply whether they favored or opposed the Bush administration's proposal. Typical of the findings in other, similar surveys, these respondents favored repeal by almost three to one.

In the second version, respondents were reminded that the revenue shortfall from repealing the estate tax would entail raising other taxes, cutting government services or increasing federal borrowing. Strikingly, these respondents opposed repeal by almost four to one. Although the sample sizes in both surveys were small (only 42 in the first group, 66 in the second), the odds of observing such a sweeping reversal by chance are remote.

Frank proceeds to lay out an affirmative case for the estate tax, explaining its importance and its inherent equality. If you're interested in the debate over Republican attempts to get rid of the estate tax, this is a must-read (at least to hear the liberal side. If you want the conservative angle, I suppose you should visit DeathTax.com).