About a month ago there was an op-ed in The Hill by Women Impacting Public Policy president Barbara Kasoff that spun estate tax repeal as being positive for women and minority business owners. Not only was the article chalk full of misleading statements, but it was written by the president of a group whose members have a special financially lucrative interest in seeing the estate tax repealed (for more information see our previous blog posting on the article.

After reporting yesterday that the House and Senate had yet to reach a compromise on the supplemental spending bill, they did in fact reach one last night. The $94.5 billion bill to fund the military and hurricane relief also sets the budget spending cap for the Senate at $873 billion (the Senate, remember, had orignally passed a budget resolution allocating $16 billion more in funding, mostly for human needs programs). A number of Senators wanted to boost the cap to $880 billion, but were unable to do so because of resistance from the White House and the House leadership.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said today they expect conferees to produce a final lobby reform package before Congress leave town for the Fourth of July. Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert added, “Lobbying and ethics reform remains an important priority for Congress. We are confident that the conferees will work hard and deliver a conference report that will build trust with the American people by making our government more transparent and accountable.”