Oh, Say Can You See a U.C.? Far from getting the necessary 60 votes, the effort to pass H.R. 3996, the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007 -- a.k.a., the House-passed AMT patch bill -- a PAYGO-compliant, one-year patch accompanied by a provision to close the carried interest loophole and other offsets, was defeated by a vote of 46-48 in the Senate this morning. The Senate will solider forward in its effort to pass an AMT patch, no doubt. Allowing the AMT to go unpatched by year's end and 20 million new taxpayers to have to pay it is politically unimaginable, but as today's vote shows, the Senate would rather not pay the roughly $50 billion price of the patch -- even at the expense of the PAYGO principles. I wonder how subtle the Senate will be in waiving those principles formally. Oh, say can you see a U.C.?