For a second time, Democrats have delayed House action on a bill that combines an extension of jobless and COBRA health benefits with a separate package of popular tax breaks known as the 'tax extenders', as some Democrats express concerns about the plan.

The bill would expand the deficit by $123 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office, and that makes some Democrats a bit queasy this election year, especially with the yearly deficit heading over $1.5 trillion.

Three sections of the bill are designated as "emergency" spending, which means it does not have to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases, and will simply be added to the federal debt:

$54.6 billion for extended jobless & COBRA benefits through the end of 2010
$24 billion for extended aid to states to deal with increased Medicaid costs

Also not paid for is a partial Medicare "Doc Fix", which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would cost $63 billion.

It's not a long term fix, because as the CBO says "Payment rates would be reduced by about 35 percent in 2014" in order to square it with current law, which requires a 21% cut on June 1st and another 6% cut on January 1, 2011, all part of efforts to squeeze savings out of the Medicare system.

At some point, Congress will have to change the 1997 law that required cuts in how much doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients, and when that happens, they will have to pony up a big chunk of change to offset the revenue that won't be coming in when they get rid of that plan.

In terms of tax revenues, this plan brings in about $40 billion in new money to Uncle Sam, mainly from taxing hedge fund profits differently ($19 billion) by treating the income of partners as ordinary income and not as taxable capital gains.  (This is the so-called "carried interest" provision.")

$14 billion would come from changing rules that corporations use to calculate foreign tax credits and income and another $11 billion by modifying the employment tax treatment of income earned by individuals in professional service businesses.

As for the laundry list of tax extender provisions that would be renewed, the tax extenders include things like:

Deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers
Additional standard deduction for State and local real property taxes
Deduction of State and local general sales taxes
Tax-free distributions from IRAs to certain public charities from age 70 1/2 or older, not to exceed $100,000 per taxpayer per year
Tax credit for research and experimentation expenses
50% tax credit for certain expenditures for maintaining railroad tracks
5-year depreciation for certain farming business machinery and equipment
Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations
Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico
Exception under Subpart F for active financing income

You can see the whole list of what gets spent and what tax breaks are renewed at http://bit.ly/cCwYBT .

While the business community loves most of these tax break provisions, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out against this bill yesetrday, arguing that the tax increases included offset the positives from all the tax breaks.

"These tax increases will hinder job creation, decrease the competitiveness of American businesses, and deter economic growth. Ultimately, we have no choice but to oppose this legislation as drafted because it is a job killer," said the Chamber's R. Bruce Josten.