It almost seems as though liberals beclowning themselves with bizarre proposals come in threes, as celebrity deaths are supposed to. First, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (now dubbed a horrible boss) told his employees to start engaging customers in discussing the volatile subject of race while others behind them in line wait for their caffeine fix, and idea that has received nearly universal ridicule from people of all races. So bad that he had to shut down his Twitter feed.

Then came Barack Obama’s proposal to require people to vote, generating what my colleague Rick Moran calls “zombie voters,” people so uninformed that they already avoid voting. Perhaps he has in mind fining them, and having Justice Roberts call it a “tax” to pass constitutional muster.

But at least the first two can be fairly certainly be in possession of triple digit IQs. No such presumption can be made for Rep. Linda Sanchez, author of the third triumph of liberal soft-headedness. Rachel Stolzfoos reports in The Daily Caller:

Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez offered a baffling defense of the death tax Wednesday during a hearing examining the sometimes unbearable burden it places on family farms and businesses.

People receiving food stamps have to pass drug tests or meet work requirements to receive taxpayer dollars, Sanchez reasoned, so it’s only fair that those “lucky” enough to inherit wealth should have to do something to earn it or, in this case, pay a tax.

“What work requirements are there to inherit up to $10 million tax free?” she asked a witness, rhetorically.

“Why is that [a single mother] should be drug tested, which is an unrelated requirement to receive food assistance, to make sure that her family has enough to eat,” she asked. “And people who are lucky enough to inherit millions of dollars are literally required to do nothing to get the federal tax benefit with their inheritance?”

Not getting taxed on money that has already been taxed is a “tax benefit”? Only in a world where all the money belongs to the federal government, and people keep only what the government allows them to, as a “tax benefit.”

Getting money taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun for doing nothing is the same as parents passing on money that has already been taxed? Only in a world where work is irrelevant to receiving money, and family ties are less significant than government largess.

The fact is that the welfare structure of the United States is now so generous in many states that millions of people are dropping out of the workforce and choosing to live on checks from the government. Forcing the remaining people paying taxes to support them is very different from not taking money away from people because they died.

The death tax is very unpopular, and moves to abolish it have wide public support. Many family farms and businesses are forced into liquidation in order to pay estate taxes, throwing people out of work and diminishing competition as larger companies snap up assets from smaller family owned businesses whose owners die.

Rep. Sanchez has made a fool of herself. That is nothing new, of course.