Different newspapers mean different takes on the current debates in the Senate. The tax reform package ? an supposedly “urgent” measure ? has been stuck in Congress for nearly two months and, just recently, the PRD senators tacked on a new tax on imported High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), a move that was advanced by local sugar producers and hotly rejected by United States Ambassador Hans Hertell. Today’s Listin Diario headlines the decision made by the PRD’s political commission, as headed by Vicente Sanchez Baret, to remove the corn syrup from the tax proposals. Andres Bautista, the Senate president, said that the vote on the bill would take place this afternoon, to allow for more lobbying and negotiations between the Senate and the PRD. PLD Senator Jose Tomas Perez (PLD-National District, Santo Domingo) told reporters that President Fernandez had proposed that the issue of the HFCS be taken up with the World Trade Organization. Nonetheless, the PRSC is insisting that the 25% tax on HFCS be kept in the bill, even if it jeopardizes the passage of the Free Trade Agreement in the United States Congress. An El Caribe story, whose headline read “PRD blocks road to tax reform,” reported that a meeting of 26 of the 29 PRD senators stalled the debates in the Senate, and, after the meeting concluded, Sanchez Baret and Hernani Salazar were cited as saying that they were not sure whether the tax package “was necessary or not” given that the government has been reducing subsidies.