Today's CongressDaily News Service reports that GOP Congressional leaders are discussing whether to move separate reconciliation bills for entitlement spending cuts and tax cuts in the reconciliation process. They are also discussing the possibility of potentially moving a third reconciliation measure to increase the debt limit, currently set at $8.2 trillion. The debt limit was increased last November. CongressDaily reports: "These are the clearest signs yet that GOP leaders are serious about trimming entitlements for the first time since the 1997 balanced budget agreement. Reconciliation offers procedural protections for revenue and mandatory spending bills after successful adoption of the annual budget resolution. By de-linking legislation mandating savings in entitlement programs from a package of tax cut extensions, sources said, Republican leaders would seek to avoid unfavorable comparisons already being voiced by Democrats. "They would be concerned if tax cuts and cuts in critical services are in the same bill because people might think spending cuts for programs like Medicaid are being used to fund tax cuts," said Thomas Kahn, Democratic staff director for the House Budget Committee." This would indeed be the case if both entitlement spending and tax cuts were passed in the reconciliation process. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, Bush's tax policies since 2001 account for 48% of our deficit, yet it is the spending on entitlement programs, such as medicaid and medicare, that are going to suffer from budget cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility. Keep checking the budgetblog for updates on the the reconciliation process as well as Congress' budget resolution.