Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's Buffett Rule legislation takes center stage in American politics today, with the Senate expected to vote on the measure tonight.

But it's not the only tax measure Congress will take up with Tax Day approaching. The GOP-controlled House will consider a measure, sponsored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, that would hand a 20 percent tax deduction to businesses employing fewer than 500 people.

Governor Lincoln Chafee, who has made the on-line video a go-to medium, is at it again with a well-produced pitch for his legislative package aimed at rescuing the state's floundering cities and towns. Dramatic music, a ticking clock, who knew Linc could be an action movie star?

Still, as I noted in this space a couple of days ago, he faces an uphill climb in a General Assembly loathe to hit organized labor hard for the second year in a row: last year, it was sweeping pension reform for workers in the state-run system; Chafee's package could mean cuts in pay and pensions for municipal workers.

Occupy Providence, alongside activists from AIDS advocacy group ACT UP and the Student Global AIDS Campaign plan to march today on the Biltmore Hotel, where Vice President Joe Biden will be appearing at a fundraiser for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

The march will begin at Burnside Park, former site of Occupy Providence's 24-hour-a-day protest, and land in front of the Biltmore where activists will call on the Obama Administration to support a Wall Street transaction tax that would bring in an estimated $350 billion over the next nine years.

The new Brown University poll is out this morning and here's the topline: voters are, not surprisingly, opposed to the tax hikes and spending cuts Governor Chafee is proposing in his budget. And their already dim view of Congressman David Cicilline has taken a turn for the worse.

The poll, of 514 registered voters February 16-18, shows 68 percent opposed to $30 hikes in driver's license and registration fees, 57 percent opposed to tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge, and 80 percent against hiking the meals and beverage tax from 7 to 10 percent.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has received plenty of ink - including a New York Times editorial page endorsement - for his "Buffett Rule" bill, named after the mega-rich investor Warren Buffett.

Buffett has argued that wealthy investors like him, who face a 15-percent tax under current law, should pay at the same rate as middle-class folk - roughly 30 percent.

There are, clearly, rewards for bold, blunt leadership in times of crisis.

Last year, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras declared a "category 5 hurricane" on the city's books and was able to wrangle significant savings from municipal unions and push through a tax hike.

Treasurer Gina Raimondo, meanwhile, made a very methodical case for an unsustainable state pension system and won an overhaul that landed her breathless national press.

Forbes was in attendance today in new York as Treasurer Gina Raimondo accepted an award from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research for her work in overhauling the state pension system.

The magazine's Tim Ferguson noted that Raimondo preached transparency: an unrelenting effort to educate the public on the nature and depth of the pension crisis, such that a broad constituency would "own the problem" and embrace reform.

Ian Donnis over at WRNI chats with Senator Jack Reed, who remains hopeful that Congress, afte the failure of the supercommittee, can work out a deficit-cutting deal before automatic defense and social services cuts take hold in 2013.

Other observers have suggested that the deal will come after the 2012 elections - perhaps in early 2013 - when one party or the other can claim the upper hand in Washington and steer matters to a conclusion.

Last week, I sat down with Governor Chafee for an interview on several topics. I've written, in this space, about his comments on medical marijuana. But there were other quotes of note, too.

Last month in a story on organized labor I reported that reamortizing the state's pension obligation - refinancing and kicking some of the problem down the road - was still part of the behind-the-scenes conversation on pension reform, even if the idea had largely disappeared from the public discourse.

Amid the unending agita over the pay and benefits for Rhode Island's public workers, Reuters reports:

Local and state governments axed more than 200,000 jobs in 2010, according to U.S. Census data released on Tuesday that showed the growing threat of public employee layoffs to the economic recovery.

According to the Census, local and state governments had 203,321 fewer full-time equivalent employees in 2010 than in 2009 and 27,567 fewer part-time employees.

I was talking with former Brown University political science professor Darrell West a few days back when hopes for a grand debt-limit deal, if dimming, were still alive. He offered, perhaps, the best explanantion I'd heard to date for Washington's failure to go big. And now, with the capital's ambitions shrinking by the day, that explanation seems even more insightful.

As Washington lurches inexorably toward a lesser budget deal, Congressman David Cicilline must be thanking his lucky stars.

The broader deal that President Obama and Speaker of the House Boehner were discussing not long ago called for substantial cuts, including some in entitlement programs like Medicare, in exchange for a significant but far smaller growth in tax revenues.

The high-stakes budget showdown in Washington, which has the Obama Administration and Congressional leaders working to cut a major deficit-reduction deal before the federal government hits the debt ceiling, has put Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the spotlight. And it could have real implications for Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline's long-term political prospects.

The death of Governor Chafee's two-tiered sales tax proposal and the gay marriage bill he advocated have prompted more than a few declarations of irrelevance.

But with Smith Hill Democrats set to caucus today, and a formal budget proposal expected in the coming days, it may be time to re-evaluate.

That budget, by most accounts, will include some sort of sales tax expansion.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras' top-to-bottom review of city finances, which revealed a two-year, $180 million structural deficit, has badly damaged the reputation of his predecessor, David Cicilline, who stands accused of covering up the capital's fiscal problems while running a successful campaign for Congress last fall.