Herein lies the dilemma now facing the GOP leadership of the 109th Do-Nothing Congress: with control of Congress at stake in November, do you keep voting on the estate tax and make a point with your conservative base, or vote separately on the elements of the "trifecta" and actually make productive and positive policy?

In its horserace to recess last month, the Senate took a gamble on a “trifecta” -- a bill to increase the minimum wage, scale back the estate tax, and extend several popular tax breaks. The bill was cobbled together, rushed to the floor in a last-minute jumble – and bungled. It made national news as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) failed – tripping once again over the estate tax – to muster the 60 votes needed to proceed with the bill.

According to Senate Finance chair Charles Grassley (R-IA), the Senate is likely hold only one tax-related vote this month: "I expect there will be only one and probably that one is the estate tax," Grassley said this week.

Why is the the Senate returning to the perennial loser policy of estate tax cuts? Is it to satisfy Frist's fixation with the tax? What about extending those popular tax breaks, known collectively as the “extenders,” demanded by everyone from small business employers, to students and teachers, to environmentalists? The extenders comprise a number of tax breaks, including the research and development tax credit, welfare-to-work tax credit, brownfield remediation expensing, and the state and local income tax and college tuition deductions – which will be lost if not retroactively extended -- something no one wants to see happen.

If you are confused, ponder this riddle: Q. Why has Congress been unable to pass must-pass and can-pass legislation such as the extenders? A. Because it is too easy to pass.

That’s right, it’s too easy. Why not use the must-pass bill as a vehicle for something more controversial that will excite your base?

And herein lies the dilemma now facing the GOP leadership of the 109th Do-Nothing Congress: with control of Congress at stake in November, do you keep voting on the estate tax and make a point with your conservative base, or vote separately on the extenders and actually pass productive and positive policy into law?

How did we reach this point on the extenders package and what is in store for September?

Earlier this year, Sen. Grassley planned to add the renewal of these extenders to the tax reconciliation bill. But the GOP leadership argued that the tax extenders should not be added to the reconciliation bill because they are very popular and the special protections afforded under reconciliation are not needed to pass them. The leadership convinced Grassley they could easily be added to the pension reform bill. Yet with Congress fast approaching the final days before its August recess, the House GOP leadership suddenly floated the idea of pulling the extenders package from the pension bill so it could be paired with a major estate tax cut and a stingy minimum wage increase – all at Frist's behest.

Frist understood the trade-off here. On June 8, the Senate had rejected a bill to repeal the estate tax by three votes. He thought a “compromise” estate tax cut costing 75 percent of full repeal combined with the popular "extenders" package might buy him the votes he needed.

The normally reserved and accommodating Grassley felt betrayed, saying he had been “knifed in the back.” He pointedly noted that he had been promised by the Senate GOP leadership that the tax extenders would be on the reconciliation bill and then on the pension reform bill.

The House GOP leaders, working in concert with Frist, quickly passed the trifecta bill, which, predictably, fell three votes short of the 60 needed to proceed in the Senate. As Grassley had feared, the estate tax proposal was the killer. As a result, the popular tax extenders, the only must-pass piece of legislation in the whole mix, lie on the cutting-room floor.

Now, with 18 legislative days remaining before the adjournment of the 109th Congress, the horserace is back on. The odds are that Bill Frist will once again trot out his trifecta, which he and House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) continue to insist must be voted on intact. Said Boehner this week, "That bill is the bill and will be the bill and if anybody wants any part of the bill they get to vote for all of it or none of it."

Will Boehner’s bolshie and Frist’s fixation carry the day… and carry the Do-Nothing GOP Congress down to defeat in November? Or will the GOP allow the passable components of the trifecta, along with other middle-class tax cuts, to come to a vote in an effort to salvage its majority?

Check back here for updates on the trifecta as we near the finish line for the 109th.