Senate Votes to Eliminate Estate Taxes
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: On Capitol Hill, the stage is set for an election year showdown with President Clinton over taxes. The Senate has just approved a bill phasing out estate taxes. CNN's national correspondent Bob Franken is on the Hill -- Bob.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As a matter of fact, Judy, there's a second stage that's being set. A vote early next week expected on the marriage penalty tax as the Republicans try and line up their political ducks. But this one wasn't even close.</s>SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: On this vote H.R. 8, the Death Tax Elimination Act of 2000, yeas are 59, the nays are 39. The bill is agreed to.</s>FRANKEN: The Republicans love to call this the death tax. Its official name, really, is the estate tax, the more neutral term. Republicans, claiming that people who are small farmers and the like should not be penalized when they pass their property, etc., on to their heirs. The Democrats saying that all this is really is another tax break for the rich, that by phasing out the estate tax, they'll be costing billions of dollars in revenue just to help wealthy people. Because just about everybody else avoids an estate tax anyway. With the Republican convention coming up, the Republicans tried to make the most out of this politically.</s>SEN. PHIL GRAMM (R), TEXAS: The good news is the Congress has repealed the death tax. The bad news is the president says he's going to veto it, but the good news is Bill Clinton is not going to be president next year.</s>FRANKEN: Which gets us to what this all about and what the timing is all about. The political conventions start in about two weeks. The president will have to make his final decision on a veto within that period of time. If, as expected, he does veto this as nothing more than a tax break for the rich, the Republicans will try and turn it around during the convention and make this, and probably the marriage penalty tax, political issues that they can hammer away at during the convention in Philadelphia -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: Bob Franken at the Capitol.