Yes, they did dork. They were told by senate dems that they, dems, would raise the Byrd rule. Until the Bush Tax cuts sub paragraph e. of the Byrd rule had not been successful with tax cut bills~
To understand sunset provision history as it specifically relates to the Bush Tax cuts go here
From page 7 of the report:
When Congress began work on the
reconciliation legislation, the Byrd rule became an important
issue in the Senate debate.45 Senate Democrats
put the Republicans on notice that they would raise a
Byrd rule point of order against the bill unless the tax
cuts expired at the end of the 10-year period covered
by the bill, and the Senate Parliamentarian apparently
indicated that he would advise the presiding officer to
sustain the point of order.46
Anticipating a Byrd rule objection, the Finance Committee
included two provisions in the reconciliation
bill. The first, section 1501, sunsets the tax cuts on
December 31, 2009 (the last day covered by the bill),
thereby complying with the Byrd rule. The second,
section 1502, revived all of the tax cuts one day later.
With this combination of provisions, the committee
shifted the focus of a Byrd rule point of order away
from the entire bill and onto the single provision, section
1502, that revived the tax cuts.
When the Senate floor debate began, the ranking
Democratic member of the Finance Committee, Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., announced that he
would raise the Byrd rule point of order. Before doing
so, he put the procedural dispute in context, explaining
that “the budget reconciliation process was devised to
expedite consideration of deficit reduction measures,”
whereas “the bill before us uses those same expedited
procedures to secure enactment of a deficit-increasing
measure.” Then, he raised the specific objection:
[T]he Byrd rule provides that any provision in
any reconciliation bill which would decrease
revenues used beyond the budget window — in
this case beyond the year 2009 — may be automatically
stricken from the bill upon a point of
order being raised. Section 1502 of the bill before
us provides for permanent continuation of tax
cuts in the years beyond 2009, causing revenue
losses of hundreds of billions of dollars.47
Shortly after Senator Moynihan spoke, the chairman
of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator William V.
Roth, R-Del., moved to waive the Byrd rule and
responded to Moynihan:
[T]he point of order against section 1502 is made
necessary by the antiquated provisions of the
Budget Act whose provisions were drawn to
function in an era of deficits. . . .
Nevertheless, we must contend with the language
of [subparagraph (E)], which forbids any reconciliation
bill from achieving a net reduction in
revenue beyond the 10 years for which the committee
was instructed.
