Boston Globe: "Prepare for lame-duck jockeying" from outgoing Congress

[Human Torch]

Prepare for lame-duck jockeying

By Robert Kuttner | September 9, 2006



CONGRESS IS BACK at work for a brief session before the full-time electioneering begins. It will return after Election Day for a ``lame-duck" session, where the outgoing Congress -- with many members repudiated by the voters -- have one last chance to do damage. This year's legislative politicking is particularly fraught, because Republicans expect to lose seats, and quite possibly their majority in at least one house. Their top domestic priority is permanent repeal of the estate tax. Under President Bush, Congress enacted bills gradually reducing the taxes paid by the wealthiest estates, but the law sunsets in 2011.

As Chuck Collins of the organization Responsible Wealth puts it, ``If we are going to have any taxes at all, the fairest place to start is with dead billionaires." Under current law, only the richest 1 percent of estates pay taxes at all, yet wealth is so concentrated in America that this tax brings in half a trillion dollars over the next decade. If we repeal that tax, either taxes must be raised on other working Americans, or more programs cut -- or deficits will swell.

Earlier this year, the Republican leadership cynically tied a permanent repeal of the estate tax to legislation providing the first minimum-wage increase in a decade. Though the real value of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since World War II, supporters of an adequate minimum wage did not take the bait.

Now the GOP leadership has a scheme tying estate tax repeal to extension of the child tax credit. It's a beautiful exposition of the reigning philosophy and strategy -- trade some crumbs for everyone else for massive giveaways to billionaires. This vote will go down to the wire. The only thing standing between the Republican right and permanent repeal of America's fairest tax is a few shaky political moderates, including Democrats Maria Cantwell of Washington, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Prior of Arkansas, and Republican George Voinovich of Ohio. The Republican leadership is frantically seeking goodies to throw these senators in exchange for flipping their votes.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/09/09/prepare_for_lame_duck_jockeying/