Over a million families are hanging on by thread, and all Sen. Jon Kyl (R-$$) wants to do is cut taxes for heirs of multimillion dollar estates. In fact, he wants to give scions of the rich tax cuts so badly that he's blocking health insurance assistance and a badly needed Unemployment Insurance extension from getting through the Senate.

Senate Democrats have found Republican support elusive for a bill that would combine year-long extensions of expired tax provisions with similar continuations of expanded unemployment coverage and health insurance subsidies for jobless workers.

[...]

Still, Minority Whip Jon Kyl , R-Ariz., said Republicans will block consideration of the new bill unless they get “a path forward fairly soon” on the estate tax.

Kyl has, in the past, proposed estate tax amendments that would give over $340 billion in tax cuts to heirs of multi-million dollar estates, and he would likely offer something similar given the oppurtunity.

Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project (NELP) tells us what's a stake:

"The official statement coming out of Kyl's office is that the are holding up unemployment insurance to use as leverage for the estate tax," Conti told HuffPot. "They are jeopardizing the only lifeline that 1.2 million workers and their families have so that dead multimillionaires won't have to pay taxes."

According to NELP's analysis, 1.2 million people will prematurely lose unemployment benefits next month unless Congress acts.

United for a Fair Economy's Lee Farris calls this sort of hostage taking an "outrage":

'Why are Senators Kyl and Grassley more worried about enriching the heirs of multimillionaires than about helping Americans hit hardest by the recession?' asks Lee Farris, Estate Tax Policy Coordinator at United for a Fair Economy (UFE). 'It is an outrage that they are willing to hold struggling Americans hostage in their efforts to secure another huge tax cut for the wealthy Wall Street crowd that crashed our economy in the first place!'

Call Jon Kyl's office at (202) 224-4521, (602) 840-1891, or (520) 575-8633 and politely state your abhorrence to this move. You can e-mail his office using this form.