Dems Baucus/Schumer/Pryor join GOP to make Estate Tax Deal

[papau]

FYI - GOP Sen Kyl wants to drop the tax rate from 45% to 15% with exclusion of the first 10 million per couple - at a cost of 84% of the cost of full estate tax repeal (the rate reduction is the costly item). I swear Dems would negotiate with an attacker on how many times the attacker could rape their kids.... DAMN! :-(

Where the hell is the Dem Spine?????

========================================
ABCNote says:

"Estate tax politics:
In a piece that also looks at gay marriage, the Wall Street Journal's Sarah Lueck and Brody Mullins report that Sens. Kyl, Baucus, and Schumer "hope to reach a deal" on an estate tax compromise "in the next couple of days," according to aides.
The Free Enterprise Fund is quite pleased with this statement on Sen. Mark Pryor's (D-AR) Web site: "I support the permanent repeal of an estate tax that harms small businesses and family farms."
The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington Note that pro-estate tax repeal organizations are targeting "possible swing votes such as Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Max Baucus (D-MT), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Susan Collins (R-ME)."

[acmejack]

1. bought and sold by the eighteen families with all the money.

[Dr Fate]

5. But- but-but-the strategists say in red states we have to be "moderate"

Except the new definition of "moderate" now apparently means "far right" and that these "strategists" are the same clowns who lost the last 3 election cycles.

[shance]

9. Who are the eighteen families?

n/t

[acmejack]

10. 18 Families Behind Multimillion-Dollar Deceptive Lobbying Campaign

snip>
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2182

[central scrutinizer]

2. But Paris Hilton is suffering!!!

How do you expect her to make it on only an 9 figure inheritance?

[acmejack]

4. I saw that, the poor thing can't even afford clothes!

[Dr Fate]

3. The excuse makers will insist these Rightwing positions are "moderate"

You watch- several DUers will post on this thread and make excuses for these DEMs- claiming that this lean to the far right is "moderate" or even "centrist."

[acmejack]

7. Yes, I know they will be along any time now.

I have just about had it with these people selling us out at every opportunity. Compromise is one thing, selling out, quite another. This my, friend, is a classic example of a sell out. Schumer talks a good game, but his voting record is not the one that I would expect from a man who spouts such rhetoric. Easy Chuck, always willing to accommodate the moneyed interests at the expense of the majority of his constituency...

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Just blasted Pryor's office in Little Rock on this.

[shance]

8. They all need to go. Schumer, Pryor and Feinstein and the rest.

But they know because of their corporate connections their seats are safe.

So few of our leaders are actually Democrats. They've taken our party hostage. When are we going to face this reality?