The US Senate has restored many of the social service funding cuts originally sought by President George W. Bush and the House of Representatives, as legislative work continues on the 11 bills that make up this year's federal budget. The differences in the proposed spending -- which include programs under the Faith-Based and Community Initiative -- will have to be resolved in House-Senate conference committees before being sent to the President for final approval.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., entered the debate Thursday over lobbying overhaul and ethics by introducing a bill that would require increased lobbying disclosure, further tighten restrictions on lobbyist-financed member travel and place more limits on members and staff leaving government to lobby. "Recent campaign finance reforms are helping, but with reports of members of Congress taking corporate jets with lobbyists on board to fly to fundraisers and going on lobbyist-funded golf junkets, it is clear that more work needs to be done," Feingold said.

The administration has been using the release of the mid-session revenue and the report of a lower deficit as an excuse to squawk about their excessive tax cuts causing economic growth. Simply because deficit projections were lowered to $333 instead of a whopping $427 billion for FY 2005 does not mean that Bush's tax policies have proven to be pro-growth. Instead, much of the reason for the deficit reduction lies in the fact that revenue levels are up in 2005, mainly when it comes to corporate taxation. A number of particular tax laws has led to an increase in tax collections which will prove to be more temporary, according to many analysts, than the administration is currently admitting. The expiration of a specific business tax cut along with strong capital gains returns and a concentration in nonwitheld taxes led to a 2005 surge in revenue. The surge remember, is still lower than levels of revenue which were predicted for 2005 back in 2002. To read more on how the 2005 revenue collections have affected predicted deficits, see this CBPP report.