Yesterday, cloture on the motion to proceed to HR 8 was moved. According to the Note today

Debate is expected this afternoon with a vote scheduled to likely take place tomorrow.

The 'news' today (Times piece) is of GOP senators dashing hither and yon Henny Penny-ing in a blue funk over whether to go for compromise, or stick with complete repeal.

Whereas, of course, the natural thing to do is to try the full repeal before going for less.

There are, according to the Times, two compromise plans:

On Tuesday, Mr. Kyl circulated a proposal that would eliminate the tax for any estate worth less than $5 million and reduce the current rate for bigger estates.

And the Baucus plan:

Under one proposal he circulated -- which was rejected by Republicans as too modest -- estates worth less than $3.5 million would be exempt from any tax.

A Bloomberg piece notes the devil in this particular detail:

Repeal would subject more estates to taxes than under current law because many inherited assets would be subject to capital gains taxes, according to at least one analysis by a Democratic tax expert.

The report in the journal Tax Notes by John Buckley, chief tax counsel for the Democratic staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, said permanent repeal would subject up to 71,400 estates annually to capital gains taxes beginning in 2010. Under current law, 7,500 estates would be subject to the estate tax in 2009, according to the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

The reason: under the current regime, all property subject to estate tax (whether any tax is payable or not) has an uplift in basis to market value.

Whereas, once repeal is in place, a carryover basis will apply.

Which will mean a latent tax liability on property below estate tax thresholds for some; and a load of hassle trying to ascertain the basis of property for a good few more.

(I'm no expert - that's just what I remember reading somewhere. Caveat lector!)

Seems to me that this is one issue where you can fairly easily split the difference over.

If Frist doesn't get the win - well, he never really thought he had a chance in 08, did he?