This country depends on an adequate, progressive tax system built on a principle of fairness.

There’s strong talk in Washington about abolishing the federal estate tax. The House has already voted to eliminate the tax, and the Senate is expected to vote on the issue in June.

As a businessman who has worked hard and long, I might be affected by the estate tax some day. Even so, I think abolishing it would be a terrible blow to the nation and should be resisted.

Those who want to get rid of the estate tax like to refer to it as the “Death Tax,” which is akin to calling the sales tax the “anti-consumer tax.”

But in reality, the estate tax affects very few people’s estates – only 3 out of 1,000 people as of 2009. That’s because, by then, the first $7 million of a couple’s estate (or $3.5 million for an individual) will be exempt from the estate tax.

Some would have you believe that the estate tax is confiscatory punishment of the wealthy. The fact is that the average estate subject to the tax will pay 18 percent of its value in taxes as of 2009, a reasonable levy on accumulated wealth.

If we abolish the estate tax, it will cost our government nearly $1 trillion (that’s with a “T”) in the first decade after it is abolished. Some of the so-called “reform” proposals being discussed in Congress would cost nearly as much, because they would shrink the estate tax to a tiny fraction of its current size.

Now is not the time for more tax cuts. In the coming year we will again run a deficit – spending more than we take in – of close to 4 percent of the nation’s entire gross domestic product. None of us could do this as individuals, nor should we do it as a country. Our country needs more revenue – to pay our bills and meet critical needs. We do not need to provide more tax benefits to the wealthiest among us or to spend money for boondoggles such as militarizing space.

We need revenue to improve our nation’s health care system, to improve our schools, to make the opportunity of higher education available for all, to provide better child care, to support our elderly in retirement, to fund new energy sources and to care for our environment.

Somehow we seem to have lost touch with values that are so American – values such as shared sacrifice and the importance of assisting those with the greatest needs.

Instead, we hear more people spouting off about the importance of the individual, how one person can succeed if he works hard enough.

That’s often true, but nobody makes it alone. Any wealthy individual had help from all of us, and it was our system that allowed him to get rich.

It was the public schools that educated his workers. It was public roadways that brought goods and customers to his place of business. And, in many cases, it was public health programs that took care of his inadequately compensated employees.

With that in mind, it is only right that people who have gained the most wealth should return more to the community to provide the supports required to boost opportunities for the less fortunate.

That’s where the estate tax plays an important role, helping to make the economic “playing field” a little more level for all Americans.

Our society seems to promote greed and encourage rapaciousness. Just look at the headlines about executive compensation.

I believe, instead, we must find a way to pull back together as a community and do things for the common good. And I’m ever optimistic that we’ll come to our senses and find a way to do that.

Part of that is living within our means so we don’t burden the next generations with our debts. To do that requires an adequate, progressive tax system built on a principle of fairness.

That means, in the long run, cleaning up myriad tax loopholes that lobbyists have created to protect their clients.

And, in the short run, it means preserving the estate tax.

Jim Wellehan is president of Lamey Wellehan, Maine’s family shoe stores, started by his father in 1914.