Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has done something many of us wish Senators would do more often -- propose to tell the truth. Lautenberg has filed an amendment to change the official name of the "Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act 2005" to the "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act." Lautenberg said "Let's call this bill what it is -- a moral disaster." And that it certainly is. His amendment probably won't pass, but I think many of us appreciate his attempt to call the bill as it is, as opposed to trying to disguise it as an attempt at fiscal responsibility.

The Senate approved a slightly amended budget reconciliation spending bill this evening by a vote of 52 - 47. The Senate considered 20 amendments throughout the day and adopted three of them before the vote on final passage. The bill would cut $39.1 billion from entitlement spending.

It appears House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) may not include a temporary alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch this year to protect 14 million people from paying the tax. An AMT one-year fix will not fit in the reconciliation package along with an extension of capital gains and dividends, which has a cost of roughly $21 billion over two years. An AMT fix, on the other hand, would cost about $30 billion.

More the a dozen Republican members of the moderate "Tuesday Group" met last night with Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA), who was attempting to assuage their concerns about the upcoming reconciliation bill that will enact a new round of tax cuts. Some Republican aides and many moderate Republicans in the House have continued to question both the policy of cutting taxes with the ongoing budget pressures of war and Hurricane Katrina, and the politics of doing so while simultaneously cutting funding for programs supporting poor Americans. The House Republican caucus is holding a special 4-hour retreat this afternoon to discuss tensions between moderates and radical members of the Republican Study Committee - who are pushing for much more drastic spending cuts than was originally agreed to in the budget resolution earlier this year. As GOP leaders in the House continue to attempt to hold their caucus together, the White House has issued a veto threat to the compromise package developed by the Senate Finance Committee for their budget reconciliation bill. Senior administration aides have stated they will urge the President to veto the budget bill if it eliminates a regional "stabilization" fund that provides incentives for private health plans to offer Medicare prescription drug benefits in rural areas. The Senate Finance Committee eliminated the so-called slush fund in order to distributing the required $10 billion in cuts over both Medicare and Medicaid. Finance Committee Chairman Grassley said it was the only way to win the necessary approval from all the committee Republicans. In both the House and the Senate, the obstacles continue to pile up in front of the reconciliation bills this year.