AUGUSTA – Activists and public officials said Monday that permanent repeal of the estate tax sought by the Bush administration will force more federal borrowing and drain away millions of dollars needed for state programs.

Speakers at a State House news conference said the estate tax now accounts for about $30 billion a year in federal revenue and $166 million for Maine. Its repeal also would siphon away $54 million a year in gifts to charities, the Fair Taxes for All said.

Joining the 15-member coalition were state Rep. Peter Mills, a member of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, and state Treasurer Dale McCormick, a Democrat.

Mills, R-Cornville, called repeal of the estate tax “the height of fiscal irresponsibility” at a time of mounting federal deficits, rising costs and soaring property taxes.

McCormick said the $166 million annual loss of federal dollars in Maine is based on Congressional Budget Office estimates of a loss of nearly $1 trillion over 20 years if the tax is repealed permanently.

A 2001 law gradually reduces the tax rates on inherited estates and repeals the tax as of 2010. Unless Congress permanently repeals the estate tax, it will reappear in 2011. Senate rules designed to limit budget deficits forced lawmakers to make the repeal expire in 2011.

President Bush wants Congress to make the estate tax repeal and other tax cuts permanent. He said the tax cuts are a key to building confidence among employers and strengthening the economy.

Congressional Republicans also want the tax fully repealed to protect families who own small businesses and farms and prevent their heirs from liquidating their enterprises to pay their tax bills.

Of the 12,000 Maine residents who died in 2001, a total of 455, or 3.7 percent, had estates large enough to owe estate taxes, according to Fair Taxes for All, which represents nonprofit civic, labor, faith-based, environmental and other groups.

Both of Maine’s Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted in June 2002 in favor of repealing the estate tax. But the Senate rejected permanent repeal.

The same month, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen of Portland, a Democrat, voted against a permanent repeal, as did then-Rep. John Baldacci, who is now Maine’s Democratic governor.

U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat, voted in June against an estate tax bill he said would have caused too much of a drain on the federal budget. He supported an alternative that would have made permanent exclusions to the tax available.