Housing/Stimulus -- Senate Readies Its Package: Senate leadership announced late yesterday that a compromise had been reached between Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) on a stimulus package nominally targeted to the nation's slumping housing sector. Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee chief Sen. Max Baucus unveiled a tax title to the housing bill. Cost: $10.8 bill. Offsets: none. Economy -- Bernanke Warns of Protracted Recession: In testimony before the Joint Economic Committee yesterday, Fed Board Chair Ben Bernanke predicted the economic slowdown is here to stay for a while longer. Reasons: pressures in short-term bank funding markets, limits on available credit, strains on municipal bonds and student loans, troubles in the nonconforming segment of the mortgage market, slowdowns in issuance of high-yield debt, and strains in commercial paper. Estate Tax -- JCT Report on Wealth Transfer Alternatives: The Joint Committee on Taxation today released a report, Taxation Of Wealth Transfers Within A Family: A Discussion Of Selected Areas For Possible Reform, in advance of a Senate Finance Committee hearing today on the same subject. JCT Report. Hearing.