Quick Update: Fiscal Package in the Senate

Hold the phone, your taxes aren't raised just yet. It appears that a PRI-PRD alliance in the Senate is working to eliminate the new taxes from the fiscal package the House of Deputies approved late last week. This includes the proposed raising of the IVA value-added tax from 15% to 16%, raising the ISR income tax 2 points on everyone making over 6,400 pesos a month, a 3% tax on telecommunications, and an increase in the tax (and lowering of the threshold) on cash deposits in bank accounts (IDE). This, after a PRI-PAN alliance steamrolled the presidential proposal through the lower house practically unchanged, despite vociferous protests from the Worker's Party (and the usual equivocations from the PRD). Will somebody explain the PRI, please? Are their Senators more liberal than their Deputies? Have they had a change of heart after seeing the public's disgusted reaction to the proposals? Or - and this is most likely - are they simply trying to have it both ways, voting for the presidential proposals in the House in exchange for favors while trying to give a populist veneer to their machinations by tweaking things a bit before the bill inevitably passes? Votes are expected on Monday. Stay tuned....