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In the coming days, the House will pass a tax bill that would extend the Bush tax cuts entirely for one year. This stands in slight contrast to a Senate-passed bill that extends the same tax cuts for the first $250,000 of income. But what I didn’t realize is that the House bill will also set up a mandated process for tax reform that would weaken the rules of the Senate in an attempt to fast-track the effort.

The reason that the extension only lasts one year is because of this tax reform process, unveiled by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp.

The conference committee for the payroll tax cut is on a road to nowhere, and it’s clear that the House and Senate leadership will have to step in if the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and the doctor’s fix will get extended beyond the end of the month.

The payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits expire on February 29. And though the House-Senate conference committee charged with figuring out a year-long extension met yesterday, there really isn’t a lot of movement toward a solution. Pay-fors seem to be the biggest stumbling block.

It looks like a blink. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters yesterday that “I think at the end of the day there’s a lot of sentiment in our conference, clearly a majority sentiment, for continuing the payroll tax relief that we enacted a year ago in these tough times.” But there are many hurdles to overcome before this comes to pass

The Super Committee, what we’ve been calling Catfood Commission II, held its first meeting today. There wasn’t much on the agenda, just the internal governing rules of how the committee will proceed, under the direction of co-chairs Patty Murray (D-WA) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Both sides are talking about compromise and the need for action, but a lot of that talk can be dismissed as empty. The fault line that’s starting to emerge is over whether job creation strategies should be part of the Super Committee’s work.

Republicans show their collective fannies.

There were no real surprises among the choices made by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell for the Catfood Commission II. It’s perhaps interesting to note that Paul Ryan didn’t make the cut, but I guess Boehner figured that he’s toxic and therefore not a good face to put on the committee. Instead, Boehner picked two heads of other committees with jurisdiction over health programs and taxes, and made the chair a member of the original Catfood Commission as well as the House Leadership.

If you listen to Republicans (and some Democrats) these days, we’re facing two big problems in this country. One, working people just have it too easy. And two, the wealthy and the powerful are in desperate need of more government assistance.

Todd Tucker with Public Citizen will be liveblogging the House Ways and Means Committee full committee hearing on the pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, and job creation. You can find more details about the panelists scheduled to testify today at the Committee’s site at this link.