Interesting article this morning on Bloomberg (Ryan J. Donmoyer) : Bush, Congressional Republicans Split Over Tax Code Overhaul:

Congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush are divided over whether and how to make an overhaul of the tax code the centerpiece of their agenda in 2006.

Republican congressional leaders don’t want to confront voters in an election year with hard choices such as trimming homeownership tax breaks to help abolish the alternative minimum tax, as a presidential panel has recommended, according to strategists. Their uncertainty is magnified by a lack of guidance from Bush’s administration, which hasn’t commented on its panel’s recommendations.

This hesitation is at odds with the ambitions of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, who has only one year remaining as head of Congress’s most powerful tax-writing panel before he is forced by House Republican rules to vacate his post.