The House passed its latest version of the AMT bill, HR4351, in a straight partisan vote yesterday. Don't celebrate yet. The White House released a statement yesterday, even before the bill was passed, that HR4351 would be vetoed if it were presented to the President for signature. There's little chance of that happening, however, because the Senate has made it clear that it will not pass a bill with offsets.

It seems what we have here is an impasse of epic proportions. It's particularly challenging because both positions have merit. Of course, we need to be ever mindful of the budget deficit, but raising taxes on one set of taxpayers to pay for tax breaks for another set of taxpayers is a bitter pill. The looming delay of tax season is just icing on the cake.

Will the dust of this political standoff settle by the end of next week? Will we have a nice, simple patch that will just do what it needs to do and nothing more? One that doesn't include a single pay-for provision? Oh, wait. That would be like the one that the Senate passed --- last week!

We'll just have to wait and see how this thing plays out. Yes, I said wait. I didn't say patiently.

Until tomorrow