Just when you couldn't be shocked any further, news item: This coming week, the U.S. Senate intends to vote to permanently abolish the federal estate tax, the country's only tax on large inheritances of wealth.

In light of the failure to invest in protecting the Gulf Coast and the shameful federal response following Hurricane Katrina, there is no clearer evidence that Republican leaders "just don't get it." Passing a $1 trillion tax break for billionaires in the wake of one of our country's worst national disasters is grotesque and shameful.

Yet there is every indication that Senate Majority Leader Thomas Frist intends to proceed with a vote. Congress Daily interviewed a GOP aide on Friday who stated that the "Senate will take only a brief break from its previously scheduled business when lawmakers return Tuesday to pass a resolution on Hurricane Katrina before returning to work on the estate tax bill."

The estate tax is our country's most progressive and fairest tax, paid only by multi-millionaires and billionaires. In the coming decade, the estate tax will raise almost $1 trillion in revenue. These are funds that could be used to rebuild the Gulf Coast, close deficits, and respond to other neglected federal priorities.

Abolishing the estate tax has been a centerpiece of the radical right-wing tax agenda since the late 1990s. It has also proved to be a successful fundraising pitch to wealthy Republican donors. Under the 2001 Bush tax cut, the estate tax is currently being phased out until it is completely repealed in 2010. But without Congressional action, the estate tax will return in 2011. This is the reason for the push for "permanent repeal," which has already passed in the House and now awaits Senate action.

Presently, the first $3 million of a couple's wealth (half for an individual) is exempted from the tax. The current 2005 tax rate is 47 percent. By 2009, the wealth exemption rises to $3.5 million for an individual and $7 million for a couple, while the rate drops to 45 percent.

Even in the face of enormous short-term and long-term federal deficits and a war with rising casualties and costs, the President and Republican leaders have held fast in their resolve to axe the "death tax" as they call it. So perhaps it's too much to expect that a massive natural disaster, claiming thousands of lives, might cause them to alter their course.

Late last week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement urging Republicans to postpone the vote. "I am surprised at the Republican leadership's insensitivity toward the events of the last week. With thousands presumed dead after Hurricane Katrina and families uprooted all along the Gulf Coast, giving tax breaks to millionaires should be the last thing on the Senate's agenda. I understand that the Senate shouldn't grind to a halt as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but there are issues that are of much greater importance both to the people directly affected by the hurricane as well as the nation as a whole than estate tax repeal."

Democratic Senator Max Baucus, who has historically voted for repeal, echoed this statement: "I am supportive of working on repealing the estate tax, but now is not the appropriate time. The nation is calling out for the Senate to act to help those in need."

Ironically, all six Senators from the Gulf States hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, will likely vote for estate tax repeal. Even Senator Mary Landreiu (D-LA) is not a sure vote against repeal. Yet the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are among a handful of states where fewer than one-tenth of one percent of estates a year subject will be subject to the tax by 2007. [See http://www.coalition4americaspriorities.com]

If the Senate proceeds with their vote this week, it will be a troubling reflection of the power of greed and denial in the Washington, D.C. corridors of power.

Chuck Collins is Senior Fellow at United for a Fair Economy (ccollins@faireconomy.org). He is co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes (Beacon Press). For information or to take action on the estate tax see: http://www.faireconomy.org/estatetax/index.html

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