Player of the Week: Sen. Max Baucus

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped craft the 2001 tax cuts, but he does not favor extending all of them.

The Finance Committee chairman bucked his party on the tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003. But he was firmly on the White House’s side in the healthcare debate and has echoed President Obama’s call to extend only the middle classes’ tax cuts.

{mosads}Baucus last week said a one-year extension of all the Bush tax cuts would be a “bad idea,” adding that a two-year extension would be “almost as bad.”

Despite resistance from Obama and Baucus, some short-term extension of all the Bush cuts is seen as likely.

It will be interesting to see how much of a role Baucus takes in tax discussions this fall. Will the bill that becomes law be written in his committee or on the Senate floor?

Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last year gave Baucus a lot of time to come up with a bipartisan bill on health reform, irritating many liberals. 

But in February, Reid killed a bipartisan jobs bill that Baucus had written with Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Reid has a good relationship with Baucus, something Baucus did not have with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Reid said last week that he agrees with Obama’s proposal, though any deal on tax cuts will be struck only after the midterm elections.

Even though there is little time left in the 111th Congress, Baucus has an ambitious agenda. He wants to reach bipartisan deals on the estate tax and a tax extender bill that has repeatedly fallen short in 2010.

On Thursday, Baucus will hold a hearing on tax reform that will examine the lessons learned from President Reagan’s 1986 tax reforms.