Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) outlined his schedule for the next two weeks today, and his plans include bringing up the estate tax again. Frist told reporters, "I'll do everything I can to have another vote on the 'death tax' by July Fourth;" who knows if he will seriously be able to get away with doing this, or if he is only stating his desire to bring up the issue again to pander to his base. Frist acknowledged that he does not have the necessary support in the Senate for full repeal, and so he will probably turn to Sen. Kyl's compromise.

OMB Watch Tells Congress PART Should Remain Insignificant Senate Rejects Estate Tax Repeal; Frist Likely to Turn to Costly 'Compromise' Think Tank Focuses on Economic Security

Picture this, if you will: A hurricane levels your house and you have to move into an apartment while your home is repaired. You are also a reasonable, sane, and mathematically competent homeowner who can budget living expenses appropriately. When you created your budget that year that the hurricane destroyed your home, you (rightfully) did not include in your budget a line-item for mortgage payments and rent. Let’s also imagine that you’ve had problems getting your home repaired due to unexpected problems with your contractor, various building codes, material shortages, etc.

Sen. Voinovich is making waves in his call for "pay-for-performance" to replace the traditional civil service for federal employees. What exactly does performance mean? How would the administration actually assess performance? We have some clues with the shoddy work they've been doing on assessing the performance of programs with the Program Assessment Rating Tool. OMB Watch just testified today about some of those problems -- check it out.