Let's hear it for the Senate Democrats who showed the cojones to stop the permanent repeal of the estate tax. The Bush Administration and its Republican soulmates on the Hill are noit just in favor of the rich -- they are not embrassed to be in favor of the rich.

The idea that the estate tax is a tax on money that's already been taxed once is a pernicious fiction. Most of the money taxed is capital gains that have never been taxed. Most Americans only earn wages and salary, which is in fact taxed at least twice -- FICA and income tax. Yet the rich, for whom wages are usually not the most significant part of their income, avoid taxes as much as possible.