This excellent editorial in the New York Times discusses the conservative push to repeal the estate tax in the Senate. The article says "The mostly Republican supporters of repeal don't have the necessary votes, but are threatening to bring the measure to the floor to force Democrats to vote against it. Democrats, in turn, fear being painted as pro-tax at election time, so would rather broker a compromise than vote against repeal." However, a bad compromise would be worse than no compromise at all. The article notably points out that irresponsible repeal - such as one that had the exemption level at $3.5 million and the taxable rate at 15% - would end up costing the treasury almost as much as full repeal would (87 percent), and thus is just as harmful.