Next week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Max Baucus (D-MT) will introduce legislation aimed at reducing abuses in certain life insurance contacts involving tax-exempt organizations. The bill will target life insurance contracts that inappropriately afford benefits to private investors that would not otherwise be available without the charity’s involvement.

House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) spoke about the estate tax yesterday, saying that he would be willing to settle for less than full repeal of the estate tax. "If in fact you're not able to repeal it, the next best thing is certainty," he said. Thomas also pointed out that his reconciliation tax package may fall well below the $70 billion mark recently laid out in the Congressional budget resolution. $70 billion is the amount the Senate decided upon in their budget plan; the House had settled on a much lower figure of $45 billion. Thomas once again called the tax reconciliation numbers "a ceiling."

The AP is reporting that government-funded researchers have been testing AIDS drugs on abused and neglected children in foster care, for the last two decades—without providing those children the protections they are supposed to have under federal law and some states’ laws: Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

The House is expected to give final approval to an $82.04 billion "emergency" supplemental spending bill as early as tomorrow after House and Senate conferees announced they have reached agreement on the details of the legislation needed to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation (HR 1268) includes a few additional spending items for tsunami relief, foreign aid, and border security in the southwest U.S. The final cost is just above the $81.9 billion President Bush urged Congress to appropriate for the spending bill. The figure grew during talks where Lewis was convinced to include some of the money the Senate wanted to address security concerns at U.S. borders, particularly in the Southwest. The conferees agreed to provide another $75.9 billion for the Pentagon to pursue its military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure is $1 billion more than Bush asked for, and represents a compromise between the $74.8 billion Senate level and the $76.9 billion sought by the House. More details on supplemental OMB Watcher coverage of supplemental Bush Criticized Over War Budgeting Process