Update on Tax Bill

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UPDATE – Earmarks are posted.

From Elizabeth Letchworth of GradeGov.com, our Capitol Hill insider:

The Senate is considering the global tax agreement post cloture. If all time is used under Rule 22 then the final vote will occur at 12:30AM. (nope that is not a typo)

After lunch, or sometime early evening, Senators Coburn and DeMint will offer motions to suspend the rules in order for their amdts to be in order. Remember this vote requires 67. The motions are:

Coburn–paying for Unemployment Insurance
Coburn–paying for Unemployment Insurance
DeMint–Making the tax cuts permanent

It is expected that these votes will be stacked to occur this PM. During the stacked roll call votes, I anticipate that many Senators will appeal to Sen. Sanders to let some time lapse on the 30 hours allowed post cloture so the final vote on the tax bill could occur before 12:30AM. Lets see how persuasive members of the Senate can be with Sen. Sanders.

Next up in the Senate will be the full funding of the CR. The Leader would like to bring this up immediately after passing the tax bill. It is anticipated that Sen. Reid will offer the Inouye/Cochran Omnibus bill as a subst. to the House passed CR. Sen. DeMint will ask that the clerk read the amdt in total. This is an effort to highlight the earmarks contained in the full year funding of the appropriations bills.

Expect the Senate to have to get cloture on the Inouye amdt. This will be a close vote in the Senate. Retiring GOP appropriators (Bennett, Voinovich, Bond) and Collins and Lugar are likely to support the Inouye/Cochran language notwithstanding Sen. McConnell opposing the full year funding. Sen. Feingold and Bayh are opposing as well as a couple of other Senate D’s. This could be a real nail biter!

If it fails to garner the needed 60 votes, Sen. Gregg will offer a short term CR to expire Feb., 2011. This too will need 60 votes to pass.

Expect the CR to move through the Senate Wed and Thursday of this week. Depending on the timing of the final vote on the tax bill, the CR could spill into Friday in the Senate. This would all but guarantee a weekend session for both the House and the Senate.

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