Why oh why is it always "the family farm"? At this point, that deserves its own named fallacy. Fine, let's make the first $10 million tax exempt. Or is the hypothetical "family farm" a family farm like Johnson & Johnson is a family company?

Of course, the reason that fallacy exists is because it works. Every argument against increased progressive taxation has been extensively focus-group tested, of course it works. But the need to consciously counter that messaging doesn't render the policy impractical.