At a cost of more than $100 billion, the bill also nudges the nation toward greater use of alternative energy resources, renews popular tax breaks for businesses and individuals, and extends relief to disaster victims.

It includes a provision to ensure that mental health problems get the same level of insurance benefits as other medical treatment. The bill passed 93-2.

“The economy is struggling,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, said. “At times like these, Americans need tax cuts that they’ve come to count on, that can help them get by.”

The tax bill is one of several major efforts to right the teetering economy in what could be the final week of this session of Congress. Lawmakers are trying to reach agreement on a $700 billion plan to bail out failing financial institutions, and Democrats are trying to put together a stimulus package to help average citizens get through the current economic crisis.

The House was expected to take up the tax package on Wednesday.

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) was enacted in 1969 to catch a few very rich tax dodgers. But it was never adjusted for inflation and now Congress must act every year to ensure it doesn’t catch more people.

Without action, those affected could grow from about 4 million to 25 million, at an average tax increase of $2,000. The fix would cost $64 billion spread out over 10 years.

Last year, Congress, after a prolonged fight over whether to pay for the fix with new tax revenues in other areas, waited until late December to pass legislation, causing delays in some IRS refund payments. The AMT patch this year, as last year, is not paid for.

The first segment of the three-part tax bill was a $17 billion measure to spur investment and create jobs in the renewable energy industry. The energy legislation extends for eight years, through 2016, investment tax credits for the solar power industry and for homeowners who install solar and wind equipment.

Taxpayers can claim a credit of up to $7,500 for purchasing plug-in electric cars, and production credits are extended to wind, biomass and marine – waves and tide – facilities. There are incentives to use smart meters for more efficient home energy use.

A study commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association found that the eight-year extension would more than triple investment during that period, to $325 billion, and almost triple employment in the industry, to 440,000 in 2016.

While enjoying wide bipartisan support, the tax bill has struggled to get through the Senate this year. Senate Democrats have been caught between Republicans and the White House who oppose any new taxes to offset the costs of the tax relief and House Democrats demanding that the bill be paid for to avoid adding to the federal deficit.

“Don’t send us back something else,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said in an appeal to the House. If there are changes, he said, “it will die.”

His resume reveals involvement in eight presidential campaigns, starting in 1976, focusing particularly on debate preparation.

He played the role of George H.W. Bush in mock debates with Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988.

In 2000 and 2004, respectively, he assumed the persona of Dick Cheney in practice debates with Joe Lieberman and John Edwards.

For more than 20 times during the 1992 campaign he sparred with Bill Clinton in his debate preparation; in 2008, he assisted Hillary Rodham Clinton as she geared up for a whopping 23 primary debates.

Curious where he stood this week, Inside the Beltway reached Washington lawyer Robert B. Barnett at his Williams & Connolly office, and while he’s not playing the part of John McCain as Barack Obama undergoes three days of preparation for Friday’s first presidential debate, at the University of Mississippi, he assured us that he is involved in other capacities. He declined to be specific.

Alan Schroeder, author of “Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Risk TV,” and an associate professor at Northeastern University, told this columnist in a telephone interview from Boston: “Barnett probably has been the stand-in debater for more candidates than anyone in history.”

Washington lawyer Greg Craig, a former Clinton administration official, instead has the honor of playing Mr. McCain this week.

Meanwhile, if only for a few hours, prominent black Republican Michael S. Steele, Maryland’s former lieutenant governor, will become Mr. Obama as Mr. McCain prepares for the debate.

ONE MAN’S VIEW

“When there is a fire in your kitchen threatening to burn down your home, you don’t want someone stopping the firefighters on the way and demanding they hand out smoke detectors first or lecturing you about the hazards of keeping paint in the basement. You want them to put out the fire before it burns down your home and everything you have saved for your whole life.”

-Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, addressing the current economic crisis and why Congress must take immediate action to try to head off a serious blow to Main Street and this columnist’s 401(k).

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL?

Portion of the laws passed by the current Congress that have involved the renaming of post offices: 1/4

-Harper’s Index, October 2008

KUDOS NOR HOLIDAYS

Members of the U.S. Senate and their staffs are told of rules and policies, some new and effective immediately, surrounding the use of the U.S. Senate Internet Service, including Web sites, electronic mail, blogs, podcasting and streaming media.

Be advised, ladies and gentlemen:

1. “Matter which constitutes or includes any article, account, sketch, narration or other text laudatory and complimentary of any senator on a purely personal or political basis rather than on the basis of performance of official duties as a senator is prohibited.”

2. “Reports of how or when a senator, the senator’s spouse or any other member of the senator’s family spends time other than in the performance of, or in connection with, the legislative, representative and other official functions of such senator is prohibited.”

3. “Any transmission expressing holiday greetings from a senator is prohibited. This prohibition does not preclude an expression of holiday greetings at the commencement or conclusion of an otherwise proper transmission.”

MOOSEHEAD CHASER

Wait until you get a load of the “Saratini” concoction that Republican activist LaDonna Hale Curzon is urging fellow female supporters of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (“Team Sarah,” the ladies call themselves) to serve at local debate-watch parties on Oct. 2, when the Republican vice-presidential nominee goes face to face against Democratic Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

Mix 1 ounce of Glacier Bay vodka (in honor of Alaska) with 2 ounces of champagne (in honor of her classiness).

Add a few drops of lipstick-red cranberry juice (in honor of the Red States and lipstick).

Shake and pour into a martini glass. Garnish with a silver bullet (in honor of her lifetime NRA membership).

Stir with a miniature plastic hockey stick swizzler (in honor of her “hockey mom” status).

Chase with a Moosehead beer (in honor of her moose-hunting abilities).

• John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or Jim Mccaslin.

John McCain lashed out Monday at Barack Obama’s political pedigree, tying his rival to notorious Chicago machine politics as the Republican struggled to reclaim the advantage that slipped to Mr. Obama as the Wall Street mess has unfolded.

In a new ad, Mr. McCain accuses his Democratic opponent of running the same “corrupt Chicago political machine” as convicted felon and Obama patron Tony Rezko and the Daley family, which controls Chicago politics.

Mr. McCain’s campaign said they are raising the corruption issue because the press has failed to do so.

“Senator Obama very directly has introduced the issue of associations in this campaign, I think, raising fundamentally that you can tell something about people by the company they keep,” top McCain aide Steve Schmidt told reporters.

As the financial sector spiraled downward last week so did Mr. McCain’s poll numbers, dragged down by his own confusion over the state of the economy and knocked off message by his own surrogates. What had been a slight three-percentage-point lead in the polls turned, and Mr. Obama now leads by 2.7 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.

And a CNN poll released Monday showed that 52 percent of likely voters believe Mr. Obama would be better at handling the economy compared with 44 percent for Mr. McCain.

Sensing an opening, Mr. Obama sought to press his advantage, working to link Mr. McCain with President Bush, whose popularity has dipped below 30 percent in some national polls.

“We did not arrive at this moment by some accident of history,” he said in Green Bay, Wis. “We are in this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to the rest of us.”

He hit his Republican rival for failing to change the “greed and irresponsibility” of Washington during his 26 years there and said his ties to lobbyists would prevent real change from coming to the nation’s capital.

As the campaign proceeds, the two camps have stepped up their on-air attacks through ever-harsher commercials.

Mr. Obama’s campaign took issue with the new McCain ad, saying it was an effort to distract from Mr. McCain’s stumbling last week and from reports, including one Tuesday in the New York Times, examining McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In a statement, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that rather than embracing Chicago’s political machine, Mr. Obama ran against it.

“Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate as an independent Democrat. He took on the Chicago Democratic organization in a primary to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. And in both Illinois and Washington, he has challenged the Old Guard for landmark ethics reforms,” Mr. Burton said.

But Mr. McCain’s campaign said the ad, which will run nationally and in battleground states, is a fair response to what aides said have been repeated personal attacks by Mr. Obama.

The ad ties Mr. Obama to four Chicago figures, including Obama economic adviser William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, whose election machine has been accused of dirty politics, and Rezko, who was convicted of fraud and bribery.

In talking with reporters, Mr. Schmidt said the press owes voters more scrutiny of Mr. Obama’s ties to William Ayers, an early Obama backer who gained notoriety as a leader in the Weather Underground, which bombed government buildings in protest of the Vietnam War.

Mr. Schmidt took particular shots at the New York Times for its story yesterday concerning Mr. Davis.

“Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today, not by any standard, a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization,” he said, without mentioning that the newspaper endorsed Mr. McCain during the Republican primary.

As Congress considered a new $700 billion plan, Mr. Obama criticized the largest government bailout in history.

“We cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and accountability when no oversight and accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place,” he said.

He also outlined his already announced plan for a more transparent government, saying the nation must “get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place.”

He said an Obama White House would forbid the “revolving door” of lobbying and then entering government with a two-year ban on working on anything related to former employers and a permanent ban on lobbying the administration after leaving.

Mr. McCain, meanwhile, said Mr. Obama has been slow to come up with solutions to the financial crisis. He said he is “greatly concerned” by the plan, which he said surrenders too much power to the executive branch without any accountability.

“When we are talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, ‘trust me’ just isn’t good enough,” he said in Scranton, Pa.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday any plan to rescue Wall Street from its financial woes must ensure that taxpayers are reimbursed and corporate executives are not further enriched for bad behavior.

The Democratic presidential candidate also accused President Bush of taking a “my way or the highway” attitude on the proposed bailout.

Mr. Obama added that his proposed middle-class tax cuts remain “absolutely necessary” despite the economic turbulence. He said it would put money in the pockets of working families at a time when the economy may be sliding into recession.

Mr. Obama outlined several principles that he said should be included in the $700 billion bailout to ensure that troubled financial firms and their executives don’t take advantage of taxpayers.

Companies that take financial aid from the government must slash their executives’ salaries, he said. Taxpayers must be treated like investors who can share in any Wall Street recovery, perhaps with an ownership stake in the companies, and a new fee on financial services should be created to repay the government aid.

“This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives,” he said at a news conference.

Decisions on how to spend that $700 billion cannot be left solely in the hands of the Treasury secretary, Mr. Obama added. An independent board should be chosen by Democrats and Republicans “to provide oversight and accountability at every step of the way.”

Earlier, in an interview on “Today,” Mr. Obama had said the huge expense of a Wall Street bailout might require a “phase in” of the programs he has promised, including tax cuts.

But speaking to reporters in Florida, where he will be preparing for Friday’s debate, Mr. Obama said he remains committed to addressing needs in health care, education and energy. “Tax cuts would be particularly important to strengthen an economy sliding into economic recession,” he said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, initially barred reporters from her first meetings with world leaders Tuesday, but reversed course after they protested.

At first, campaign aides told the TV producer, print and news agency reporters in the press pool that followed the Alaska governor that they would not be admitted along with still photographers and a video camera crew taken in to photograph her meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who are here for the United Nations General Assembly this week. She also was to meet later with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

These sessions and meetings scheduled for Wednesday are part of the Republican campaign’s effort to give Palin experience in foreign affairs. She has never met a foreign head of state and first traveled outside North America just last year.

At least two news organizations, including The Associated Press, objected to the exclusion of reporters and were told that the decision was not subject to discussion. Presidents and members of Congress routinely allow reporters to attend photo opportunities along with photographers and the reporters sometimes are able to ask questions during the brief photo sessions, usually held at the beginning of private meetings.

CNN, which was providing the television coverage for news organizations, decided to pull its TV crew from the first meeting, with Karzai, effectively denying Palin the high visibility she had sought. But after the campaign agreed to let CNN’s producer in as well, the CNN camera crew joined the session.

According to the CNN producer who was let into Karzai’s hotel suite with the photographers just before noon, Karzai was talking about his son. Palin was nodding, and asked what his name is. Karzai replied his name was Mirwais and explained that it means light of the house.

The media were escorted out after about 40 seconds.

Campaign aides subsequently announced that reporters would be allowed to accompany photographers into the later sessions with Uribe and Kissinger.

At that point, campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said it was all just a “miscommunication.” Earlier, she had said, “The decision was made for this to be a photo spray with still cameras and video cameras only.”

Palin has been criticized for avoiding taking questions from reporters or submitting to one-on-one interviews. She has had just two major interviews since Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate on Aug. 29.

On Wednesday, McCain and Palin were expected to meet jointly with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. Palin was then to meet separately with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

NEW YORK | President Bush has softened plans to push world leaders Tuesday on legacy-building projects such as curtailing nuclear proliferation and confronting Russia. Instead, he will use his U.N. address to reassure them on the U.S. financial meltdown.

Foreign leaders and their delegations, bolstered with a larger than usual number of finance ministers, will closely watch the president’s speech to the opening of the body´s 63rd General Assembly and will press the U.S. for information during private diplomatic meetings.

One European diplomat said that “a lot of leaders have looked at the biggest event in New York, and it’s the global financial crisis.” The cover of New York Magazine on the rack inside the Waldorf Astoria, where the president and many other world leaders are staying, screamed: “The Panic of 2008.”

Mr. Bush’s speech was still being worked on Monday as Congress and the global market digested his administration’s $700 billion rescue plan.

“The whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector and retirement accounts,” Mr. Bush said in a statement released Monday morning.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, speaking to reporters flying with the president to New York, said the administration is aware of the concern.

“We are so intertwined with other economies around the world in our increasingly global economy,” she said.

The White House said its rescue plan is already being well-received in foreign capitals, pointing to a statement issued Monday morning by the finance ministers and central bank governors from the industrial nations in the Group of Seven – the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and Italy – after a conference call.

“We strongly welcome the extraordinary actions taken by the United States to enhance the stability of financial markets and address credit concerns, especially through its plan to implement a program to remove illiquid assets that are destabilizing financial institutions,” the statement said. The ministers also pledged to cooperate “to ensure the stability of the international financial system.”

President Bush leaves the Oval Office on Monday as he heads to New York City to attend and address the United Nations General Assembly. (Associated Press)

But the mood in New York belied continued statements of confidence from U.S. government officials.

Abdelaaty Bakry, a 55-year-old limousine driver who works mostly in Manhattan’s financial district, said he was not comforted by the president’s rescue plan.

“The mess which happened, nobody can fix it. People are already scared, everything’s shaking,” he said. “The money will hide now. The people who have money will not spend.”

Mrs. Perino said the president will explain that the rescue plan “was not the president’s first instinct, that he would not have wanted to take this action to help these companies if he wasn’t convinced by the considered judgment of his senior economic team that it was critical to protect the American taxpayers and the American economy as a whole.”

Mr. Bush will also conduct bilateral diplomacy, particularly on the Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia, Iran’s continued defiance of international nuclear strictures and North Korea’s recent statements that they are restarting their nuclear weapons program.

The president will also focus on U.N. reform, a topic on which he has often been at odds with the international body.

And the president will meet for the first time Tuesday with new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. While the White House insists that its relations with the new regime in Islamabad remain strong, there have been several troubling signs recently.

But the economy will dominate, and no matter what Mr. Bush says, leaders and ministers will be watching negotiations in Washington with Democratic congressional leaders, who are resisting administration demands that they pass a “clean” bill without amendments.

Democrats on Monday released more desired changes to the $700 billion plan unveiled Friday by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr.

The plan would use taxpayer dollars to buy up mortgage-related securities that have plummeted in value and threaten to capsize investment banks and other financial firms. But Democrats want more oversight for the plan than was proposed – Mr. Paulson has agreed to that – along with several other measures that the White House is less likely to accept

Democrats want to limit pay packages for chief executive officers of failed financial firms, which some fear would risk driving executives away from participating in the government’s plan.

Mr. Bush tried to prod Democrats to move forward with minimal amendments.

“Obviously, there will be differences over some details, and we will have to work through them,” Mr. Bush said. “But it would not be understandable if members of Congress sought to use this emergency legislation to pass unrelated provisions, or to insist on provisions that would undermine the effectiveness of the plan.”

Watching the showdown between Democrats and the White House, Wall Street on Monday was not comforted, with the Dow Jones falling 372 points for the day and crude oil shooting up from about $105 a barrel to about $121 a barrel.

This General Assembly will be the last in the auspicious green marble General Assembly chambers. The entire complex is scheduled for a top-to-bottom renovation starting in early 2009. During the six-year renovation, large conferences and plenary sessions will be held in a large, supposedly temporary structure now under construction on the U.N. grounds.

Among the 79 presidents and 38 prime ministers expected to appear this week: Mr. Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Georgia’s embattled Mikhail Saakashvili.

An unusual number of major countries will be represented by relatively lower-level ministers because of political elections or turmoil at home. Among them are Thailand, Japan, Canada, Israel and Bangladesh.