Americans are getting poorer. In 2007, home equity fell below 50 percent for the first time on record since 1945. Total equity also fell for three straight quarters through last December. Adjusted for inflation, the annual income of the typical working household is still below its peak before the last recession, in 2001. That means the Bush-era expansion is on track to be the first since the government began keeping records in the 1960s in which household income fails to hit a new high.

And yet, in the Senate, Republicans are ready to do battle on behalf of America’s wealthiest families.

Starting in 2009, the estate tax will apply to Americans with property at death worth more than $7 million per couple, or $3.5 million for individuals  a whopping 0.3 percent of people who die each year. As part of the 2009 budget resolution, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, has proposed to keep the tax at those levels, with annual adjustments for inflation. The proposal is expected to pass, as early as Thursday.

Everyone knows that the Baucus proposal is better than the status quo: under current law, the estate tax will be eliminated in 2010 then revert in 2011 to the far higher levels that applied in 2001, before the Bush tax cuts. Republicans, however, think that Mr. Baucus’s more-than-generous fix does not do enough to shield the wealthy. After it passes, Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, is expected to propose further cutting the estate taxes of those still covered by the 2009 rules.