The Democrats' draft legislation includes an array of stringent taxpayer protections.

The chilling anecdotes, orchestrated by Republican leaders to buttress their call for a less intrusive federal government, persuaded Congress to pass new taxpayer protections.

The Governor promised "taxpayer protection" to stave off the impact of the ruling, which said that the Shoreham nuclear power plant had been overtaxed.

Governor Pataki, who encouraged the merger talks, said, "It's an important initial step toward our goal of double-digit rate reduction and taxpayer protection."

But some tax experts said the new taxpayer protections would open the door to more cheating, a growing problem in a system that relies largely on voluntary compliance.

Governor Pataki, for example, promised "taxpayer protection."

The wording of the EESA consistently uses taxpayer protection as a benchmark for decision making.

Back and Forth For some years now, the pendulum has been swinging back toward taxpayer protection.

The conference committee should ditch that idea immediately, and also pare back some of the expensive new taxpayer protections, to make sure they are as narrowly targeted as possible.

"They are voting against taxpayer protections," Mr. Feehery said.