Well, it only took the Republicans in Congress 15 months, but they finally passed the 2005 tax cut reconciliation bill this evening. The House passed the bill last night by a vote of 224 - 185 and the Senate voted 54 - 44 tonight to approve it. Three Democrats (Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), and Mark Pryor (AR)) joined 51 Republicans to pass the misguided tax bill that overwhelmingly benefits the super-rich and uses outrageous gimmicks to circumvent common-sense budget rules. Sen. Chafee (R-RI), Snowe (R-ME), and Voinovich (R-OH) joined with 41 Democrats to oppose the bill.

Yesterday the House Appropriations Committee approved the 302(b) allocations announced by Chairman Lewis on May 4. Again, the 302(b) allocations for FY07 are the division of about $873 billion in planned discretionary spending among the 11 Appropriations subcommittees. The allocations were approved yesterday by a 37-25 vote (along party-lines), after little discussion. The committee did reject an alternative offered by Democrats, as well as a proposal by Rep. Virgil Goode Jr. (R-VA) to boost funding for military construction and veterans' affairs.

GOP negotiators for the House and Senate reached a deal yesterday on the nearly $70 billion tax reconciliation measure. The bill extends Bush's deep tax cuts by extending the 15 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, and also includes a one-year patch protecting 15 million Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax. $67 billion of the $69 billion bill will go toward one of those two priorities.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has indicated that if he has the votes he will hold a vote on the House budget bill potentially as early as friday. Interestingly, this $2.7 billion budget plan includes language in it, as reported in today's Washington Post, that would bump up the federal debt ceiling yet again, to almost $10 trillion.