Democratic leaders say they want to have a budget resolution by next Friday [1]. Both the House and the Senate say they want to include "paygo" [2]rules in the budget, which would require any new programs or tax cuts to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. But at this point it looks like the Senate's more broadminded about what constitutes an offset. (There are other differences, too -- have a look at the Concord Coalition's latest budget update [3]). Plus, Republicans and even several Senate Democrats are pushing to make some of President Bush's tax cuts permanent now [4], even though the cuts don't officially expire until 2010.

Of course, Friday is a self-imposed deadline, and the budget resolution itself isn't strictly binding, but what happens next week will tell us a lot about how serious Congress is about fiscal responsibility.