I just discovered that Oregon's U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith is on the Senate Finance Committee, one of the two key tax-writing committees of our Congress. Smith is one of 11 Republicans on the panel; the Demos have 10. That's 21 percent of the Senate on that committee, but it puts our pea-pickin' solon in a prime position to affect federal tax policy. The last time we had this much clout on tax matters was when our former senator, Bob Packwood, was in charge. For a while, he and Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) were running the tax system. Then, well... they both had some problems, heh heh...

Smith's chief tax aide is listed as Rob Epplin, 404 Russell Office Building, e-mail rob_epplin@gsmith.senate.gov. Oregonians out there, got a view on the Bush tax proposals? Drop old Rob a line.