The death of the death of the death tax could be imminent. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday it was "doubtful," that the House would consider a new or conference version of H.R. 5970, the "trifecta" bill, prior to pre-midterm adjournment. The trifecta, weighted down by a $750 billion estate tax cut, passed the House in July, but failed in the Senate by three votes on a procedural motion in early August. Per the Washington Post, "headed nowhere [is] the permanent estate tax repeal that Republicans have tried all year to push across the finish line." Boehner, seeing no sign that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and his trusty trifecta troupe of four Senate colleagues (Gregg, Kyl, Grassley, and Lott) can pull a rabbit out of their hats and somehow get the estate tax poison pellet through the Senate, seems ready to pull the plug. "I'm not sure there is time," Grassley said yesterday. But he leaves himself this out: I have not had a conversation with [House Ways and Means Committee chair William] Thomas about this… I am apparently going to have a conversation with him, but I don't know what he's going to lay out so it's hard for me to comment on what I think about what he's going to lay out that I don't know." Though Thomas is a champion of estate tax repeal, he may be hearing the sounds of silence emanating from the Senate and join Boehner in saying the last rites for the death of the death tax… for now.