'Tis the Season to Be Silly

It must be the eggnog. As Congress lurches toward Christmas, things are getting downright silly on Capitol Hill.

In the Senate this afternoon, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma, delayed consideration of health care reform legislation by forcing the Senate clerk to read a 767-page amendment that would create a “Medicare for All” single-payer health care system. That could have taken up to 10 hours. But after about three hours, amendment sponsor Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont, withdrew it, so the Senate could move on.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, accused Republicans of engaging in a “political game” of “delay and obstruction.” Coburn’s move, he said, was keeping the Senate from moving to legislation passed by the House today that funds the Department of Defense, and includes an extension of unemployment benefits and subsidies for COBRA health care coverage.

“Our Republican colleagues are acting Scroogelike during this holiday season,” Menendez said.

Democrats, meanwhile, continued to play games themselves. As of this afternoon, they still hadn’t revealed the contents of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s supposed compromise version of the legislation. For days, they’ve said they couldn’t say what the deal was until they received an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office on its impact on the federal budget and the insurance market.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said this afternoon that the CBO report is supposed to provide that report today, and it’s “been trickling in, parts of it.”

All we know is that the deal once included a provision that would let Americans ages 55 to 64 buy coverage through Medicare, but that was scuttled due to the objections of Senator Joe Lieberman.

The Democrats’ secrecy over Reid’s alleged deal made President Barack Obama look a little silly Wednesday afternoon when he said, “I am absolutely confident that if the American people know what’s in this bill, and if the Senate knows what’s in this bill, that this is going to pass, because it’s right for America.”

The problem is, no one knows yet “what’s in this bill,” at least until Reid finds something that gets the 60 votes needed to get through the Senate.

Congress also today appeared ready to allow the estate tax to expire January 1, even though it’s sure to reinstate it sometime next year. So don’t pull the plug yet on your rich grandma; if you keep her alive until January, you might be able to get your inheritance tax free.

This situation was created by tax cuts enacted by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2001. Under that bill, the estate tax would be phased out and then repealed in 2010, only to come back in 2011 at the high rates and low exemptions that were in effect in 2001. No one expected that to happen. Republicans hoped to win permanent repeal of the tax. When that didn’t happen, everyone assumed a compromise would be worked out. After all, Congress had 10 years to figure this out.

But Congress, being Congress, waited until the tax was at death’s door to address it. The House passed legislation December 3 to make the current estate tax rate of 45 percent permanent and exempt $3.5 million of assets from the tax. Many Republicans in the Senate, however want a lower rate and higher exemption. With health care reform dominating its agenda, the Senate couldn’t hash out this issue.

The House then planned to attach a two-month extension of the estate tax on today’s defense bill, but dropped the idea when it became clear that could jeopardize that bill’s passage.

So next year, Congress will try to reinstate the estate tax. They’ll probably try to make it retroactive so there is no tax-free window for death, but lots of experts say that would be unconstitutional.

Death and taxes may be certain, but the death tax isn’t.