Aside from the threshold moving to $400,000, this deal was better than the previous Senate bill that everyone wanted the House to pass.
Harkin voted for that bill (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00184), which didn't include most of the provisions in the current deal.
The estate tax was a sticking point with even Democratic Senators (the Senate bill that passed kept it at $5 million with a rate of 35 percent). This is how the proposals facing Republicans measured up:
1) Accept the President's proposal with "dividends to be taxed as ordinary income" and the "estate tax to be levied at 45 percent on inheritances over $3.5 million."
2) Pass the Senate bill, "which currently taxes inheritances over $5 million at 35 percent," but excludes Obama's dividend proposal.
3) Go over the cliff when "the estate tax is scheduled to rise to 55 percent beginning with inheritances exceeding $1 million."
G.O.P. Balks at White House Plan on Fiscal Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/us/politics/fiscal-talks-in-congress-seem-to-reach-impasse.html
The deal increased the rate to 40 percent.
As for estate taxes, the rates will rise from 35 percent to 40 percent for estates valued at over $5 million dollars, however the Republicans did succeed in building in a provision which allows the amount of the exemption (currently five million dollars) to be indexed to the rate of inflation.
On second thought: This bill includes no spending cuts.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022109603
May not matter though. Looks like the House is going to kill the bill.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022111551
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