WP: Estate Tax Lunacy

[LSK]

Estate Tax Lunacy

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; A19

Spring has given way to summer's full-furnace heat in Washington, apparently taking with it any scintilla of sense that Congress may yet possess.

In the House, Republicans who could not even raise an eyebrow at reports that the National Security Agency has been conducting warrantless wiretaps of Americans became instant civil libertarians when the FBI conducted a search of a congressman's office.

The Senate, meanwhile, is scheduled next week to take up legislation by Arizona Republican Jon Kyl that would permanently repeal the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. If enacted, Kyl's bill would plunge the government another trillion dollars into the red during the first decade (2011-2021) that it would be in effect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001182_pf.html

[Dr.Phool]

1. The Paris Hilton Relief Act.

[WyLoochka]

2. Baucus - Again!

Has been working against the majority of Dems to corral 5 or 6 of them in support of the same kind of odious compromise on the Estate Tax as he pushed on other bills - such as the first big tax cuts and the Med Care Part D Big Pharma giveaway deal.

Doesn't look like he has enough - yet - let's keep it that way.

To quote Meyerson from the WSJ piece: "The Democrats are running this year as the party of comparative fiscal sanity and greater economic equity and security. Baucus's compromise would undermine all those premises. Republicans might very well attack Democratic senators up for reelection this year for failing to repeal this hideous death tax, as they call it, but any Democratic senator who can't rebut that charge in what is shaping up as a very Democratic year should probably be in another line of work."