This amendment to the economic stimulus bill passed by the House and now being considered by the Senate, submitted by conshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifervative icon-in-the-making Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), was breathtakingly bold. The , from Sen. DeMint’s Website:

o Permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all;
o Permanently keep the capital gains and dividends taxes at 15 percent;
o Permanently kill the Death Tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent for those above;
o Permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit;
o Permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty;
o Permanently simplify itemized deductions to include only home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
o Lower top marginal income rates from 35 percent to 25 percent.
o Simplify the tax code to include only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
o Lower corporate tax rate as well, from 35 percent to 25 percent.

This got the support of all but five Senate Republicans.

Frustrated by a lack of bipartisan outreach from House Democratic leaders, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said House Republicans -- who voted unanimously last week against the economic plan pushed by President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- will pitch a "positive, loyal opposition" to the proposal. The group, he added, should also "understand insurgency" in implementing efforts to offer alternatives.

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

Frustrated Senate Democratic leaders dispensed with calls for bipartisanship on the stimulus package Thursday, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying that he won't let anyone "hold the president of the United States hostage."

President Barack Obama had once hoped to have the package pass with substantial Republican support. But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that's now a “distant memory."

"So far," he said, bipartisanship "isn't working. . . . It takes two to tango, but the Republicans aren’t dancing.”

In the House, meantime, leaders of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition sent a letter Wednesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer urging more scrubbing of the stimulus bill when the House revisits the bill in conference.

Two of the eight leaders who signed the letter joined the unanimous House Republican conference in voting against the stimulus bill last week in the House.

The letter notes that "while a number of Blue Dogs voted against the package considered in the House, many of those who did support it did so with serious reservations and the conviction that the package should and would be improved through Senate consideration."

"Now that the Senate is debating its stimulus and recovery package, reports indicate certain senators, including Sen. [Ben] Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. [Susan] Collins of Maine, are engaged in a bipartisan effort to pare further spending. We believe that's a highly worthwhile goal, and that there are additional provisions that would be better left for consideration in regular order," wrote the Blue Dogs.

"We look forward to working with you to achieve that goal and ensure that any final stimulus and recovery package is properly focused to achieve the results the American people expect and deserve. "