Norm Ornstein offers this Roll Call oped (free access). A snippet: “To those unfamiliar with the issue and controversy, the House and Senate passed a major budget bill by the narrowest of margins in both chambers, including a tie-breaking vote in the Senate case by Vice President Cheney, but it turned out that the bill passed the House and Senate in different forms. This was not simply a transcription error, a misplaced comma or a misspelled word–something that would be plenty serious–but a $2 billion discrepancy that arose over a last-minute compromise between the two chambers over the time allowed for the rental of medical equipment for Medicare patients. After the House had passed its version and the discrepancy became known, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) unilaterally changed the House bill to match the Senate’s and then sent it on to President Bush, which he signed to great fanfare.” The article also mentions HR 1606 and 4900, the competing internet campaign finance bills.