Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) gave an exceptional floor speech this morning on the tax reconciliation bill. His speech highlighted one theme: paying for the tax cuts Or in general, government spending). Whether or not one agrees with cutting taxes, it is especially egregious for members of Congress (and the President) to be pushing through tax cuts and extensions year after year and, rather than propose a way to pay for this spending, simply tack it on to the deficit.

Both the House and Senate will be holding important votes today on reconciliation bills. The House Rules Committee met this morning at 7 AM and decided to bring the budget reconciliation measure to the floor today. It is still unclear whether the leadership has the votes to pass the $54 billion bill. This vote is extremely important, and lies in the hands of Republican moderates. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), chairman of the radically conservative Republican Study Committee, himself said that the "Republican revolution is over," if the House does not pass this reconciliation measure.

Although we do have Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to thank for successfully pressuring Finance Committee Chair Grassley (R-IA) to remove the cap gains and dividends extensions from the reconciliation tax bill, it appears this victory could be very short-lived.

Senate Finance Committee members passed the tax reconciliation bill out of committee yesterday, after stalling for a number of days due to Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) opposition to the provision extending low tax rates for capital gains and dividends. The $60 billion measure which passed does not include the extensions, which were put in place in 2003 and scheduled to expire in 2008.