I wish I didn’t have to keep pointing out the sorry state of the “opposition” party. But, alas, the reason we may lose yet another trillion dollars in revenues over the next decade to fund education etc. is that too many Democrats seem likely to vote to end a potential filibuster to prevent the repeal of the estate tax, which I began discussing yesterday.

Here’s the info I have from people close to the fight in Washington, D.C.:

The Republicans will probably hold all 55 of their people in line by simply demanding party loyalty, though there are some attempts being made to lean on John McCain, George Voinovich (OH), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Susan Collins (ME), and Olympia Snowe (ME) to buck Frist by arguing the fiscal insanity of letting millionaires get away with more money from the U.S. Treasury at a time of record deficits.

It’s pretty certain that the Republicans also have Blanche Lincoln (AR) and the Nelson boys. Bill Nelson (FL)–you know, the Democrat who wants Democrats to support his re-election–signed on as a co-sponsor of Senator Jon Kyl’s repeal bill at the start of this Congress. Lincoln has long been for full repeal and her pet policy is unlimited exemptions for farms and business, which is awful tax policy. Ben Nelson (NE) gives as his excuse that he has a tough re-election next year–but he’s been off the reservation for a long time. Highly doubtful that these 3 so-called Democrats do the right thing. So, Frist already has 58 votes to end debate and crush a filibuster–just two votes shy.

The other Democrats who apparently are most ripe to topple are: California’s Diane Feinstein
(who is personally rich so I guess this is her looking after her heirs); Mark Pryor (AR–this is a suck-up to his home-state Wal-Mart heirs), Evan
Bayh (IN–how about a message to Bayh that a vote with the Republicans means no support when he runs for president?), Mary
Landrieu
(LA); Ron Wyden (OR–who has been terrible on trade issues) and Max
Baucus (MT–I just groan everytime I see him speak on the Senate floor because he strikes me as a complete dope and overmatched by his Republican counterpart on the Finance Committee). There are a couple of more potential problems (Robert Byrd and Ken Salazar).

By the way, Landrieu, Baucus, Bayh and Pryor all voted for the bankruptcy bill earlier this year–yet another bill that hurt average working families but helps the well-connected and powerful (in this case, the credit-card industry).

What’s striking to me is the complete inability of the Democratic side (read: Harry Reid) to demand party loyalty on this crucial issue and call for a solid vote against the repeal and for sustaining the filibuster. This is about an unconscionable raid on the public treasury by people already swimming in tons of loot from the Bush tax cuts.