Silly season on Capitol Hill. It’s that special time of year when Congress nears the end of its scheduled session and decides to do all its work at once. Dozens of bills fly across the House floor with little debate.

They’re not all bad bills, but nothing prevented Congress from addressing them at a careful pace all through the winter, spring, and summer.

This year has been particularly silly, as Congress didn’t even try to follow its annual budgeting and spending process. It just passed a temporary measure on the fly, funding the government through the first half of the fiscal year in one big bill.

Then along came the financial services crisis. (Or is it a “crisis”? I’m less and less sure that it’s a crisis for anyone more than the investment bankers who overextended themselves.)

Smack dab at the end of the session, right when members want to go home and campaign, they have to think about a $700 bailout of the financial services industry. (Text of the proposal that failed Monday is here.)

Congress comes back Thursday - maybe to consider another bailout proposal. Don’t lose focus on that issue just yet!

But for the moment, let’s take a look at some of what the Congress did while we focused on everything else that Congress was doing. These are the bills that went to the floor of the House of Representatives on Saturday. The bills that were on the House floor last Thursday and Friday are here and here. Monday’s bills coming soon:
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I was flipping through the channels on a DirecTV setup yesterday when I spied a most interesting campaign put together by the satellite TV provider itself. On the unused channels, there was an important message aimed at subscribers.

Big Cable companies are encouraging states across the country to charge satellite subscribers, like you, higher state sales taxes. This is unfair!

A bipartisan group of members of Congress have said, enough is enough! They introduced the State Video Tax Fairness Act (HR 3679 & S 3418) to prevent any state from charging higher taxes on satellite subscribers than on other video customers.

The message invites DirecTV subscribers to contact their members of Congress encouraging support for these bills.

It’s very interesting to see a company go straight to its customers with a public policy push, but you see it more and more. Ebay Mainstreet is one of the most prominent I’ve seen.

Anyway, the campaign is working to some degree. Take a look at the first comment on H.R. 3679, The State Video Tax Fairness Act of 2007. It’s from a guy who saw a message on his DirecTV system. The Senate version hasn’t seen quite as much action.

Here’s the current voting on H.R. 3679, The State Video Tax Fairness Act of 2007 and S. 3418, The State Video Tax Fairness Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

H.R. 6554, To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the personal exemption deduction for a stillborn child.

I suppose parents of a stillborn child have many of the same expenses, but still. Ghoulish.

Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki page for the bill:

Commenter Nezumi has done a little picking apart of the Pickens Plan.

I would be surprised if Pickens hadn’t thought through the tax implications of his proposal in a way that some would regard as “gaming the system.” But who would begrudge someone for following the incentives set up by the tax system? They are slightly Rube Goldberg, don’tchya know.

So, is the picture to the right a T. Boone Pickens wind farm or his tax strategy?

There are dozens more bills with energy-related tax incentives out there. The Geothermal Heat Pump Development Act of 2007 (Senate version) has been the subject of some intelligent commentary. There two related bills in the House.

Geothermal is pretty cool. We’re not talking about tapping geysers, but making use of the relatively constant temperaturs of earth just a few tens of feet below the surface. What’s the right answer? Should alternative energy stand on its own two economic feet? Or should tax policy promote it?

Here’s the current vote on the Senate version of the Geothermal Heat Pump Development Act of 2007. Click to vote, comment, learn more, and edit the wiki article about the bill: