The Senate has officially gone over the the bad place. Three out of the first seven amendments to the FY 2009 budget resolution propose to make costly changes to the estate tax. While only one of them was adopted, unfortunately the breakdown of the votes showed less support for a rational, fiscally responsible reform to the estate tax. Here's a quick summary of the amendments:

• Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) amendment to use projected surpluses in 2012 and 2013 to extend popular middle-class tax cuts and make changes to the estate tax by extending the 2009 levels ($7 million exemption for a couple, 45 percent marginal rate) passed overwhelmingly 99 - 1.
• Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) offered an amendment that would have likely increased the exemptions for the estate tax to $10 million per couple and drop the marginal tax rate to 35 percent. This amendment failed 38-62, but garnered 15 more votes from Democrats who, quite frankly, should know better, than it did last year when a simliar amendment was offered by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), which received 25 votes.
• Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) offered an amendment that would make similar changes in the exemption levels and marginal tax rates as Salazar's amendment, but would not offset the tremendous cost of such an amendment - likely around $750 billion over the next ten years according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Kyl's amendment failed by a 50-50 vote.