One day after the House passed the $70 billion tax reconciliation measure, the Senate passed it as well, sending the bill to President Bush for his signature. With these tax cuts, this Congress has once again proven itself to be a body determined to shirk fiscal responsibility and kowtow to the regressive, revenue-draining tax policies of this administration. And it was all made possible by a dishonest budget gimmick. The House easily passed the bill on May 10 by a vote of 224-185 with 15 Democrats joining all but two Republicans. The House long ago approved a version of the tax reconciliation bill centered on extending lower rates of capital gains and dividends. The extension of these rate reductions that largely benefit the wealthy has been far less popular in the Senate, which even initially passed its version of the tax cut bill without including the capital gains and dividend rate cut extensions. Instead, the Senate focused on tax cuts that primarily benefit upper-middle income Americans, such as adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax. When it came time to actually pass the measure, however, the senators caved on the capital gains and dividends issue, appearing to conveniently forget their original misgivings. Three Democrats - Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) - voted along with most Republicans for the bill. Three Republicans - Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), and George Voinovich (R-OH) - crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats. Voinovich expressed his dissatisfaction with current fiscal policy as embodied by the reconciliation bill during a May 3 floor speech, reported on by the Washington Post. Voinovich told colleagues,

"Some members believe that the solution is to grow the economy out of the problem, that by cutting taxes permanently, the economy will eventually raise enough revenue to offset any current losses to the U.S. Treasury. I respectfully disagree with that assertion... In November 2005 former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified before the Joint Economic Committee and told Congress: 'We should not be cutting taxes by borrowing'... Instead of making the tax cuts permanent, we should be leveling with the American people about the fiscally shaky ground we are on."

Voinovich finished with a bold call to action following an astute characterization of our current fiscal challenges: "I have to say this, and I know it is controversial, but if you look at the extraordinary costs that we had with the war and homeland security and Katrina, the logical thing that one would think about is to ask for a temporary tax increase to pay for them. Did you hear that? Ask for a temporary tax to pay for it, instead of saying we will let our kids take care of it; we will let our grandchildren take care of it." Unfortunately, this entire bill was enabled to pass because Republicans allowed the use of an egregious gimmick used to circumvent Senate budget enforcement rules. Under the rules of the reconciliation bill, lawmakers could not reduce federal tax revenues by more than $70 billion, if the measure were to receive expedited consideration. In order to meet the revenue target while including the full scope of desired tax cuts, senior Republican tax writers included a provision that unnaturally inflates short-term revenue, by allowing taxpayers to convert an unlimited amount of money from an IRA to a Roth IRAs starting in 2010. Howard Gleckman summarized this provision on BusinessWeek.com, saying it "promises wealthy people that they'll be able to convert their standard Individual Retirement Accounts into Roth-type IRAs. This would be an incredibly sweet deal, since retirees can withdraw money from a Roth IRA entirely tax-free. That can be much better than regular IRAs, where investors must pay tax on distributions, even after retirement." The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that this provision will raise $6.4 billion during a 10-year budget window. The real problem, however, as the independent Tax Policy Center recently pointed out, is that "the Treasury starts losing revenue in fiscal year 2014," and "the revenue loss grows in nominal terms until 2046. In present value, the government loses over $14 billion over the long term due to the conversions from existing IRAs, even though the provision appears to raise $8.6 billion in the budget window." This budgeting gimmick is little more than smoke and mirrors. The "revenue raiser" is in fact a long-term revenue loser for the government. The overall result is a tax reconciliation bill, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities succinctly stated, that "relies in large part on budget gimmicks and timing shifts to create the appearance that it is complying with a key Senate budget rule that bars the reconciliation bill from increasing the deficit in any year after 2010." These tax cuts - made possible only through shady budget maneuvering and compromising politicians - are clearly not in the best interest of the nation or of the average American taxpayer. Unfortunately, Congress has chosen to embrace fiscally-reckless policies that will increase deficits substantially, benefit the very wealthy almost exclusively, and continue to force the nation down a dangerous fiscal path.