This is a nice defeat for the GOP:

Senators voted Thursday to reject a Republican effort to shrink taxes on inherited estates during this election year.

GOP leaders had pushed senators to end the tax once and for all. It disappears in 2010, under President Bush’s first tax cut, but rears up again a year later.

“This death tax is unfair,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

A 57-41 vote fell three votes short of advancing the bill.

Knowing they lacked the votes to eliminate the tax, a small group of senators had hoped to keep the issue alive with an agreement to lift the tax from smaller estates and lessen the hit on larger ones.

Here is what really stinks about the estate tax cut:

According to the most recent statistics available from the Internal Revenue Service, 1.17 percent of people who died in 2002 left a taxable estate.

Again – our Senate has taken time away from worrying about our country as a whole to pander to a very small fraction of the nation. This is dereliction of duty in its purest form and the Republican leadership should be held to that.

(on a side note – next up is the flag burning amendment. Could this lead to a tri-fecta of Republican defeats. One can only hope so)