The AMT patch package will probably include a repeal of the IRS private debt collection program, according to BNA. We'll have more when the bill is marked up by the Ways and Means committee tomorrow.

Tyler Cowen attempts to minimize the difference between contractors and government in a piece in the Sunday New York Times. A few selected paragraphs from it: ALLEGATIONS of misbehavior by employees of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis have brought the military's use of private contractors into question. But whatever the possible sins of the Blackwater firm, the overall problem is not private contracting in itself; contractors do not set the tone but rather reflect the sins and virtues of their customers, namely their sponsoring governments...

Via, Lawrence Lessig, Robert Reich's new book, Supercapitalism, makes a point regarding the place of corporations in civil society well worth highlighting: This is a critically important point for people to get -- and one that many good thinking souls don't yet agree with. [...] Corporations are not more efficient governments. They are instead increasingly efficient money making machines. And while there's nothing at all wrong with money making machines -- indeed, wealth and growth depends upon them -- there is something fundamentally wrong with trusting these machines to restrain the drive for profits in the name of doing the right thing. Lessig's whole post is worth a read. However, below the fold is a fuller excerpt from his review.

Writing for McClatchy, Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay report on a criminal probe into mismanagement of the construction of the $600 million Baghdad Embassy. A congressional committee is examining whether the walls of the still-unfinished embassy complex, which are supposed to be blast-resistant, performed as they should have during the mortar attack.