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Friday, August 04, 2006
Reading the Tea Leaves
The defeat of the "trifecta" last night bodes well for those opposed to gutting the estate tax. This threat to the long-term fiscal health of the nation, has been staved off - for now. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) voted "Nay" on cloture to reserve to the right to reconsider this bill in September. While passage of an estate tax cut remains highly in doubt, there is a non-zero chance that this zombie legislation will be resurrected by Frist.
I thought it would be interesting take a look at what some of the reactions from yesterday's vote to perhaps have a glimpse the future - especially from those Senator's targeted by the bill's, umm, inducements:
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR): "I cannot ignore our $300 billion deficit, and the ongoing costs to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reconstruction in the Gulf Coast."
Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI)(BNA sub. req'd): "I am talking about opposing cloture on a bill that would mortgage future generations by adding more than $300 billion to already alarming federal deficits."
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH): "Repealing the estate tax, which would cost $267 billion from 2007 to 2016, would be incredibly irresponsible when we must fund the war, secure the homeland and when we know the tidal wave of entitlements are coming due. The numbers just don’t add up."
I would say that the "vulnerable" Senators who Frist thought he could persuade to pile on more debt, have thought better of this irresponsible tax scheme, and it's hard to imagine that Pryor, Akaka, or Voinovich would change his mind and decide that $750 billon of revenue loss is somehow conducive to fiscal sanity.
Posted by Craig Jennings
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