The House of Representatives will return to session next week after a two-week Thanksgiving break, with the first item on its agenda being a bill to cut taxes--primarily for high-income Americans--by an additional $56 billion. When combined with its companion reconciliation spending bill, which barely passed the House in the early hours of Nov. 18, the bill will actually increase deficits over the next five years - directly contradicting the original intent of the reconciliation process. The House was originally scheduled to vote on the tax cut bill just before the Thanksgiving recess on Friday, Nov. 18, but the vote was postponed because too many Republicans were getting a headstart on their break, leaving town early that day. Many Republicans reportedly also had misgivings about passing additional tax cuts for the wealthy that would increase the deficit in the very same day that they voted to cut programs for low- and middle-income Americans, the stated intent of which was to hold down the deficit. It remains unclear if the House leadership has sufficient backing from moderate Republicans to pass the tax cut bill. A host of moderate House Republicans have presented a major problem for the leadership team over the past few weeks, refusing to fall into line and lend their support to the spending cuts bill. The initial House vote on the spending cuts bill was postponed one week and required a significant amount of arm-twisting to pass following the delay. The amount of energy and political capital expended by the House leadership on that vote--coupled with the increasing public scrutiny of and faltering confidence in the Bush administration and a number of Republican members of Congress--may make it more difficult to pull the caucus together to pass the tax cut bill. Even if the House leadership prevails, passage in the House is only the first hurdle the tax cuts will face before being enacted. On Nov. 17, the Senate passed its version of the tax cut bill, which is dramatically than the House version. Among the major provisions that appear in the Senate, but not House, version are tax incentives and cuts related to Hurricane Katrina, inclusion of an one-year Alternative Minimum Tax patch, charitable giving incentives, and a host of revenue raisers. Also of note, an extension of capital gains and dividend tax cuts appears in the House, but not Senate, version. The extension of the 15 percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends is believed by House leadership to be the heart of the Bush tax cuts. Accordingly, the cut should prove to be contentious if there is a conference between the House and the Senate. Negotiating a compromise will be difficult with Senate moderates unwilling to vote to extend the cut with large deficits and program cuts, on the one hand, and conservatives in the House demanding it to be part of the tax cut package on the other. With only three weeks to complete this bill before a likely adjournment at the end of the year, and a number of other priorities, Congress will be hard pressed to finish both the spending reconciliation bill and this tax bill before Christmas. It may very well be forced to revisit the reconciliation bills in January when the second session begins.