Following the flurry of the fourty-four budget resolution amendment roll call votes last week, this much is clear: repeal of the estate tax is now a non-starter in Congress. In years past, the budget resolution vote-a-rama has been an annual rite of repeal for the tax. But unless an amendment on it comes up when the resolution comes out of conference and hits the floor next month, 2008 may well be the first year since the current estate tax law was enacted in 2001 that full repeal of the tax has not even so much as come up for a vote in Congress. That's progress. Now, a diffferent ritual can be performed on repeal. Last rites. Still, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee continues to foster the myth that the estate tax is a somehow a middle-class tax -- a myth we should inter, right next to repeal. In prepared remarks of March 11, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) says this about his budget resolution amendment and the estate tax: This afternoon along with a number of other Senators I plan to offer an amendment that would take the surplus in the budget resolution and give it back to the hard-working American families who earned it.... in this amendment, we're giving some certainty to American families on the estate tax. Lowering the estate tax to 2009 levels is the least that we will do is estate tax reform [sic]... the amendment that we offer shows our commitment to American families. American families earned their wages with the sweat of their brows. Sweat of their brows? "Nobody in the middle class pays the federal estate tax." Ever has. Ever will. jefferson barracks national cemetary by Flickr user paparutzi used under a Creative Commons license