The saga of the supplemental continues, as the Senate rejected an amendment by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) this afternoon, by a 48-50 vote, to strip language requiring the U.S. to start withdrawing troops from Iraq within four month, with the goal of removing all troops by March 31, 2008. War policy implications, constitutional conflicts, the record size of the supplemental, and veto threats all obscure developments this week in the Senate-passed $8.3 billion small business tax package in the bill's minimum wage provision. While the House-passed supplemental included that chamber's $1.3 billion version of the tax package, Senate Finance chair Max Baucus (D-MT) ranking Finance member Charles Grassley (R-IA) are looking at changes that could bring the size of Senate tax package up $10 billion. Accorinding to Congressional Quarterly, Baucus wants to extend depreciation of improvements to leased property through the end of 2008, beyond the March 31, 2008 date in the $8.3 billion versions. And Grassley is looking at tweaking the controversial deferred compensation cap of $1 million or five-year average compensation. In other words, compromise with the House on the tax package may take still longer and minimum wager earners continue to wait for their raise. ADDENDUM: In fact, the Senate has now adopted the Baucus-Grassley amendment to extend the depreciation tax benefits described above, bringing the total cost of the tax cuts to $12.2 billion, fully offset (see preliminary scoring). It adds a provision similar to one passed by the House to tighten a loophole parents have used to pay a lower capital gains tax by shifting assets to their childrens' names. Other offsets are tax gap closure measures including increased penalties for failures to file information returns and erroneous refund claims, and using a national database that tracks new hires.