Steven Pearlstein, the business columnists for the Washington Post, has a blistering expose on Sen. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) in today's paper. Pearlstein wonders how (or perhaps why?) Sen. Baucus was able to work his way to the top of the Democrats' list to lead the Finance Committee when many if not all of his views on committee business are essentially contrary to the Democratic Party platform. A few excerpts:

House Begins Session with New Process Rules Will Congress Stick with PAYGO?

We commend to readers today's National Journal article by Stan Collender entitled "Budget Debate Gets Off to a Bad Start," which succintly reprises the charade involved in President Bush's pledge last week to balance the federal budget by 2012. It is reproduced in full below: The FY08 debate got off to the worst possible start last week when President Bush announced he was going to balance the budget by 2012. Pledging to balance the federal budget in five years is a tried-and-true White House public relations ploy. That is the case here as well: The short-term deficit likely will be rising, with the FY07 and FY08 deficits higher than what occurred in FY06.

The taxpayer advocate service (TAS), an independent office within the IRS, put out the taxpayer advocate's annual report to Congress today (click here for the executive summary). The TAS decided that the most important issues facing taxpayers this year is the alternative minimum tax, followed by the "tax gap." Its top legislative priorities: creating a special procedure for IRS appropriations, and repealing the IRS privatization program. There's a summary of the top legislative priorities after the break.