American voters are fired up at the misguided choices and partisan bickering of Congress. Main Street families will not soon recover from a deep and unrelenting Great Recession which has triggered pink slips galore and a national unemployment tally now near the double digits.

Many people have made the painful transition from giving to food banks to themselves standing in line for food assistance or qualifying for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamp benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that over the next year 2.8 million Americans will become eligible each month for SNAP benefits -- including working moms and dads who earn too little to make ends meet. Many more are afraid of an illness because they lack health insurance or anxiously are trying to renegotiate mortgage terms so they can keep a roof over head.

No immediate relief is in sight as unemployment rates are expected to remain high.

Main Street families know that times like these call for painful choices. They have tightened their budgets and cut out many things they used to be able to afford.

Having endured those painful choices, they will be rightfully shocked and outraged to hear that some in the U.S. Senate want to give another handout to those struggling least -- a handout that will only worsen America's staggering deficits.

This time it isn't the big banks or insurance companies that would benefit, but it is another group of folks far removed from the pain and reality of Main Street -- the wealthiest of the wealthy. Some U.S. senators want to cut the federal estate tax even more than it has already been cut.

Supporters of this proposal would have you believe that nearly everyone has to pay the federal estate tax when they die. But this couldn't be further from the truth; 99.8 percent of all estates never pay this tax under the rules in place last year.

Rather than stand up for middle income families by retaining the federal estate tax at 2009 levels and responsibly working to bring down the nation's long-term deficits, a small group of senators -- from both political parties -- wants to add to the nation's deficit by generously going beyond 2009 levels to exempt estates valued up to $5 million for an individual (or $10 million per couple) from paying any tax at all, and reducing the rate they would pay on the value of estates above those amounts. This would add more than $150 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

Shocking, indeed, and wholly irresponsible.

America is engaged in two wars, unemployment is rampant, the need for food assistance is skyrocketing, foreclosure looms for many. How can these senators justify letting the richest get away without paying their fair share while millions of regular Americans are holding on for dear life?

The Senate should keep a sharp focus on priority No. 1 for American families: getting unemployed Americans back to work and extending unemployment and health care assistance to them as they continue to await a sufficient rebuilding of the economy.

Main Street families have for too long paid the price of Congress diverting its attention to out-of-balance spending and tax policies. Enough is enough.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.