Ever wonder why you see so many of those giant Hummers and Escalades, even in neighborhoods with relatively modest homes? What kind of sense does it make for someone to have a 3-bedroom ranch, and a $70,000 truck parked out front that's bigger than the living room? Well, it helps a lot if that $70,000 truck comes with a $25,000 tax deduction.

It's one of the many loopholes buried within the fine print of the tax code: Business owners who purchase heavy luxury SUVs, those weighing over 6,000 pounds, get to take deductions up to $25,000.

The original intent of this law was to give small businesses a break on buying delivery vehicles. However, almost from the moment these giant SUVs became available, dealers have been helping buyers to create Chapter S corporations, or small hobby businesses, that have just enough existence to net that tax break.

This misuse of the credit is wasteful on so many levels -- it's bad for the environment, it's bad for the budget, it distorts the actual price/demand relationship within the auto industry, and its bad for real businesses who have to compete for vehicles with all these business phantoms. Naturally, Republicans loved it.

Fortunately, Representative (and Daily Kos user) Earl Blumenauer is sponsoring legislation to close what surely has to be one of the most openly and cynically exploited loopholes in the tax code.

Blumenauer said that the new bill includes provisions for legitimate business use by exempting farm vehicles, vans, flatbed trucks and school buses from the closure of the loophole. He predicts that the provision will give back to the government about $750 million over five years, which will be used to promote conservation and alternative energy.

Supporting this legislation makes so much sense, that predictably the auto industry, their not-so-small army of lobbyists, and their "friends" on the hill are violently against it. Despite the crafting of the bill to protect legitimate businesses, they're striking out against Blumenauer's bill, claiming that it's "anti-business." Anti-cheating is more like it. Anti-looking the other way while people rip off legitimate businesses and the environment to assuage their egos in 3+ ton monsters.

It wouldn't hurt to put in a call to your own congress people and remind them that there are few opportunities to act so clearly in support of fairness, the environment, the budget, and common sense.