In her recent blog Estate Tax: The Senate Does the Right Thing Rejecting Kyl and Nelson Amendments, Linda Beale, law professor at Wayne State University Law School, expresses gratitude that the Senate did not adopt any of the three estate tax amendments it voted on last week during its budget resolution deliberations. Professor Beale goes on to add:

Now that the House Budget Committee has approved its budget resolution for fiscal year 2008 (we noted its differences with its Senate counterpart here), the full House will take it up, with a final vote expected next week. The Center of Budget provides a thorough summary of the House resolution, which points out that the budget plan "is notable for adhering to the Pay-As-You-Go rule the House adopted earlier this year." Ironically, however, the House PAYGO rule does not actually require a deficit netural budget for FY 2008:

The House just passed the FY07 supplemental funding bill that's mostly for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bill contains conditions and a timetable for withdrawing most troops from Iraq. The House of Representatives today passed a $124 billion emergency spending bill that sets binding benchmarks for progress in Iraq, establishes tough readiness standards for deploying U.S. troops abroad and requires the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq by the end of August 2008. The bill promptly drew a veto threat from President Bush.

The Senate has just completed roll-call votes on the following estate tax amendments:

• Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), to allow the Finance Committee to craft deficit-neutral legislation to reform the estate tax by establishing an individual exemption of $5 million and a tax rate of 35 percent for the portion of estates above this amount. Rejected, 25-74.