The President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform will hold their next two public meetings in Washington, D.C. on May 11 and 12. Both meetings will begin at 9:30 am and will be held in the National Transportation Safety Board Conference Center Auditorium at 429 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington , DC 20594. The May 11 meeting will focus on specific options for tax reform and the May 12 meeting will focus on business tax reform proposals. A list of witnesses, who will testify on topics such as the value-added tax, the retail sales tax, and business tax reform, can be seen here.

On April 28 Congress passed the $2.6 trillion budget resolution. The non-binding agreement between the House and Senate calls for $70 billion in tax cuts protected under reconciliation and $35 in cuts to mandatory programs. While most Republicans note that these strides will begin work towards reducing the deficit, Democrats have cited that the cuts to mandatory programs would significantly cut funding to safety-net programs that many low- moderate-income people rely upon, and that the tax cuts would raise the deficit significantly. Last friday House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) proposed more extreme cuts, and called for the House to make a "far bolder statement" in terms of spending cuts and tax reductions. He said that the spending cut numbers in the budget should be viewed as minimums and not maximums, while the amount set aside for tax cuts (most of which will go to the wealthy) should be viewed as a maximums and not minimums. The final budet resolution included more in tax cuts and less in mandatory savings than the House had originally passed in their resolution. The tax cut reconciliation bill is slated to be completed in September.

Today House and Senate budget negotiators came to an agreement on a $35 billion, five-year package of cuts in spending, after agreeing to trim the plan by about $6 billion. This agreement was made in large part because of objections voiced by Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) concerning the size of Medicaid cuts, as well as the fact that those cuts would most likely grow in years to come. Smith sponsored an amendment in the Senate which stripped many of the entitlement cuts from the Senate's budget resolution. His amendment was passed by a margin of 52 - 48. The budget plan agreed to in conference assumes $843 billion of discretionary spending in FY 2006. It reduces the amount of money that the House Ways and Means Committee will have to cut in reconciliation from $6 billion to $1 billion. The budget plan also assumes $106 billion worth of tax cuts over the next five years, $70 billion of which are protected under reconciliation. This budget plan increases the already record-high deficit, and at the same time calls for more tax cuts for the wealthy. It cuts almost all funding for domestic programs by 1 percent, yet protects $70 billion worth of tax cuts in under reconciliation. Congress is effectively taking money from social programs that help the average American, and giving it out in the form of tax breaks to the wealthy. For more information on the budget agreement, click here and here. To read Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Director Bob Greenstein's comments, click here. For a CBPP analysis, click here.