Washington ? The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to permanently repeal the estate tax, turning aside a Democratic effort to retain the tax but limit its impact to a few thousand of the very wealthy.

The GOP bill, passed on a bipartisan 256-171 vote, would remove the Jan. 1, 2011, expiration or “sunset” date that blocks permanent repeal under current law. The entire 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut enacted one year ago this week including repeal of the estate tax will disappear in 2011 because of an arcane Senate budget rule.

Senate Democrats say they have the votes to defeat the estate tax measure when it comes up later this month, even though 41 House Democrats supported it. The House also voted 231-197 to defeat a Democratic alternative that would permanently raise the estate tax exemption from $1 million today to $3 million in 2003 but keep the tax at a maximum rate of 50 percent.

Aiming to remind voters of the big tax cut in this election year, House Republicans are staging a series of debates on removing the sunset date for some of its most popular parts. President Bush is traveling today to Iowa to highlight the effort on the anniversary of his signing the tax cut into law.

“The job wasn’t done completely enough for the American people,” said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Tex.

Many Democrats accused the GOP of favoring the rich, calculating that former Enron Corp. chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling would get a tax cut of $55 million.