Senate Finance chair Charles Grassley (R-IA) is once again using reason to try to wrest the oft-deferred package of tax credit extensions from the smothering grip of the moribund trifecta (which also includes a massive estate tax cut, and a modest minimum wage hike). Last week, he cited the high cost of printing IRS forms late as a reason to pass the extenders before FY 2007 starts on Oct. 1. This week he is pointing to a report that 19.2 million individuals would be affected by a similar delay in extending three of these credits -- state and local sales taxes, college tuition and fees, and teachers' purchase of school supplies: The higher numbers are all the more reason to extend these tax breaks this week and not wait until the lame duck session. Waiting will create headaches and hardship for tens of millions of taxpayers. And as noted in a recent Watcher article, Grassley's prediction that Democrats would score political points from the "do-nothing Congress" inaction on extenders is panning out. Despite the putative costs to taxpayers and to GOP candidates -- and Grassley's appeal to reason -- there are no signs that the GOP leadership will bring the trifecta or any of its three component parts up for a vote in either chamber prior to pre-election adjournment this week.