It's the same thing when it comes to cutting capital gains taxes, which are a discretionary tax anyway, so projections about how much revenue the Treasury will lose are fatuous to say the least.Those that would oppose any repeal in the Estate Tax will stick it to the taxpayer anytime, that's a given.And it could come from some Republicans as well.I still think the best litmus test on a candidate is how they vote on taxes, and to me, the only way to reduce govenment, in any meaningful manner, is to simplify the tax code as its written.
Yes, you are wrong. They would have needed to break a filibuster. But FWIW, I don't think there would have been 51 votes either for anything resembling a clean, stand-alone estate tax repeal. They had to scramble hard to keep Jeffords, Chaffee, and probably a couple of others on board the rather weak tax cut they did manage to pass.
Looking at it historically, the liberals didn't do most of their damage with 51-49 majorities either. The New Deal and Great Society were the products of 2-1 majorities in both the House and Senate. It was almost that bad right after Watergate as well.
A pipedream, I know, but to put this in perspective imagine a Congress with 72 Republicans in the Senate and 340 in the House, plus a Supreme Court on which Scalia led a solid seven-Justice conservative majority ....:)