Yesterday the Senate passed the tax reconciliation bill in a 66-31 vote. The bill passes $70 billion in tax cuts, and makes way for conference negotiations with the House. Lawmakers will be facing a difficult conference because of differences that exist between the House and Senate versions of the bill, particularly regarding the extension of the cut in tax rates on capital gains and dividends through 2010. The passage of this bill comes one day after Congress finished work on a $40 billion budget reconciliation bill which cuts entitlement spending in an effort to scale down the deficit.

OMB Watch has written an analysis debunking some of the statements made by President Bush in the 2006 State of the Union address. Be sure to check it out.

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Presdient Bush proposed to increase clean energy research at the Department of Energy by 22 percent to research, among other things, "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol." The President certainly has a long way to go to reverse current trends. The New York Times reports today that: The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

In his State of the Union address last night, the President asked Congress to make his 2001 and 2003 taxcuts permanent, and told the American people this would make the economy even stronger. In the very same speech he mentioned efforts to "stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009."