These People Could Screw Up Falling Down

I thought they might have dug themselves out of this hole but looks like they tossed themselves back into it. More bleak news to go along with the bailout weirdness.

Lawmakers at Impasse on Incentives for Renewable Energy - NY Times - 29 Sep 08

"The House and the Senate are caught up in a bitter fight over legislation to extend various expiring provisions of federal tax law. The tax breaks for renewable energy are not controversial. But in the current debate, they are tied to many other tax breaks for businesses and individuals, including an extension of the tax credit for research and development, expansion of the child tax credit and relief from the alternative minimum tax, which threatens to snare millions of middle-income families next year.

The two chambers are at loggerheads over the question of whether and how to offset the cost of extending and expanding the business and individual tax breaks, with House Democrats insisting that the costs should be fully offset. That position is opposed by many Republican senators.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, tried on Monday to call up a House-passed bill to expand tax credits for renewable energy. Republicans objected, in part because the bill would offset more of the cost than they are willing to accept. Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, a co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative House Democrats, said, 'Senate Republicans are threatening to stop American investment in affordable, renewable energy.'

Senate Republicans contend that Congress should not have to offset the cost of legislation that continues existing tax breaks beyond their scheduled expiration date. 'Simple extensions of existing tax policies should not be held hostage to the demand by some for ever-greater tax collections,' said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee.

The dispute is a kind of proxy battle for a much bigger fight looming in the next Congress over whether to preserve tax cuts enacted under President Bush in 2001 and 2003."

These People Could Screw Up Falling Down

I thought they might have dug themselves out of this hole but looks like they tossed themselves back into it. More bleak news to go along with the bailout weirdness.

Lawmakers at Impasse on Incentives for Renewable Energy - NY Times - 29 Sep 08

"The House and the Senate are caught up in a bitter fight over legislation to extend various expiring provisions of federal tax law. The tax breaks for renewable energy are not controversial. But in the current debate, they are tied to many other tax breaks for businesses and individuals, including an extension of the tax credit for research and development, expansion of the child tax credit and relief from the alternative minimum tax, which threatens to snare millions of middle-income families next year.

The two chambers are at loggerheads over the question of whether and how to offset the cost of extending and expanding the business and individual tax breaks, with House Democrats insisting that the costs should be fully offset. That position is opposed by many Republican senators.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, tried on Monday to call up a House-passed bill to expand tax credits for renewable energy. Republicans objected, in part because the bill would offset more of the cost than they are willing to accept. Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, a co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative House Democrats, said, 'Senate Republicans are threatening to stop American investment in affordable, renewable energy.'

Senate Republicans contend that Congress should not have to offset the cost of legislation that continues existing tax breaks beyond their scheduled expiration date. 'Simple extensions of existing tax policies should not be held hostage to the demand by some for ever-greater tax collections,' said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee.

The dispute is a kind of proxy battle for a much bigger fight looming in the next Congress over whether to preserve tax cuts enacted under President Bush in 2001 and 2003."