In the wake of Tuesday's elections, it looks like House moderates aren't the only ones in ascendency in Washington. As Mary Dalrymple reports for the AP, a moderate GOP Senator has effectively blocked the party's attempt to further cut taxes for the extremely wealthy.

The GOP's tax cut agenda hit a snag Thursday when the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, lacking enough Republican votes, postponed debate on $78 billion in tax reductions.

"No progress," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said. Republicans talked among themselves most of the morning but couldn't agree on a combination of tax cuts that could win support from all of them.

They lacked the pivotal support of Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine, who said she'd like to see senators concentrate their attention on matters that must be done this year, like tax cuts that expire in 2006.

[...]

Snowe isn't the only moderate Republican to voice concerns about passing tax cuts this year. Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, another Republican moderate, said he will vote against tax cuts because the government is accumulating too much debt and the economy does not need stimulation through tax reductions right now.

"It is time to recognize a simple fact of life," Voinovich said. "Contrary to what some of my colleagues seem to believe, tax cuts do not pay for themselves."

Is this the beginning of an unravelling or just a hiccup in conseravatives' stranglehold on Capitol Hill? Today's budget vote in the House should provide a little more indication of the answer, but I'd imagine the recent developments, from Tuesday's election to the removal of ANWR from the House Budget bill, have a lot of folks in the Republican establishment worried.