Yahoo: Senate passes Democratic tax plan destined for failure in the House

[Larry]

Link.

Democrats and Republicans conducted an exercise in political theater Wednesday by holding Senate votes on their competing tax proposals, even though both appeared destined for failure.

The Democratic bill--which extends tax cuts through 2013 for all individuals except those who jointly earn over $250,000, passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate by a vote of 51 to 48. The bill saved Democrats the embarrassment of having a measure supported by the president fail in the chamber they control, but the bill has virtually no hope of passage in the Republican-controlled House.

The Republican bill, which extended tax cuts for all individuals, earlier failed by a vote of 45 to 54.

More at the link.

My first reaction was, frankly, amazement that the Senate was actually able to have votes on these proposals. What happen, the filibuster machine broke?

Link to the vote on the Democrat proposal. (The one that passed.)

For those who want the summary. Persons breaking Party ranks: None. (Sanders voted with the D's. Lieberman voted with the R's. Kirk didn't vote.)

And I think this is the vote on the Republican proposal.

Persons breaking Party ranks: Pryor (D-AR) voted with the R's. Brown (R-MA), Colins (R-ME), Lieberman (ID-CT), Sanders (I-VT) voted with the D's.

(It's a vote on whether to amend the Democrat proposal. I can't find any information about what the amendment was (apparently that doesn't show up on their web site till later). But it's the only vote I see that looks like it might be it. And the vote, 45-54, with pretty much the R's voting in favor, and the D's against, matches the vote count from the article.)

(Also observing that apparently, there were bunches of cloture votes, too. Virtually all of them failing.)

Looking forward to seeing how the R's, and their supporters, justify unanimously voting against extending the Bush tax cuts for 99% of Americans.

[twa]

Those who jointly earn over $250,000 are only 1%?

[Larry]

Those who jointly earn over $250,000 are only 1%?

Well, according to the Tax Foundation (who simply copy their data from the IRS), an income of $350,000 on a tax RETURN, puts that tax RETURN in the top 1% of all returns. But that number treats people filing jointly as one return.

Want to claim that it's more like 2 or 3 percent (and answer the question)? Go ahead, I won't argue.

[twa]

a 2 or three hundred % increase is immaterial?....no wonder you defend Obama so much

They will explain it as they always have.....and throw in it as a reason for controlling the Senate...SOS

[alexey]

NEWS BREAK: Democrats may have accidentally located their balls while trying to create a tax-related wedge issue in an election year. Stay tuned.

[DogofWar1]

Nothing is going to happen so long as compromise remains a dirty word in Washington.

I suspect on the fillibuster Republicans finally just decided to let the House kill it. They probably don't want to be seen fillibustering a bill that gives tax breaks to the bottom 98% or so. If they don't make a big deal, it'll die quietly while other things are discussed in the media.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Link.



More at the link.

My first reaction was, frankly, amazement that the Senate was actually able to have votes on these proposals. What happen, the filibuster machine broke?

Link to the vote on the Democrat proposal. (The one that passed.)

For those who want the summary. Persons breaking Party ranks: None. (Sanders voted with the D's. Lieberman voted with the R's. Kirk didn't vote.)

And I think this is the vote on the Republican proposal.

Persons breaking Party ranks: Pryor (D-AR) voted with the R's. Brown (R-MA), Colins (R-ME), Lieberman (ID-CT), Sanders (I-VT) voted with the D's.

(It's a vote on whether to amend the Democrat proposal. I can't find any information about what the amendment was (apparently that doesn't show up on their web site till later). But it's the only vote I see that looks like it might be it. And the vote, 45-54, with pretty much the R's voting in favor, and the D's against, matches the vote count from the article.)

(Also observing that apparently, there were bunches of cloture votes, too. Virtually all of them failing.)

Looking forward to seeing how the R's, and their supporters, justify unanimously voting against extending the Bush tax cuts for 99% of Americans.

Apparently McConnell decided he'd let a straight up and down vote on the D's bill if they allowed one on the GOP bill. He wanted to get everyone on record. I don't see the political advantage to the republicans in this one. But, McConnell thinks it helps his party to have these two votes on the record.

[mboyd784]

I think there's room for compromise on this one, if not the will and courage to do so.

[Larry]

Well, I have no doubt whatsoever that the GOP fully intends to announce that voting for a bill that extends one tax cut, but doesn't extend another one, is "a tax hike". "On small businesses". (Small businesses where the owner clears more than $250K/year.)

The fact that the GOP Senate just unanimously voted for a law that extends one tax cut (the Bush cuts on the top), but doesn't extend another one (the payroll tax cut) will either not occur to them at all, or they'll pretend like it didn't happen.

[Larry]

Kinda curious, the disparity between how many hits a Tailgate thread gets, and the thread topic's importance.

I figured that this thread would get a ton of posts. (I figured that most of them would be mindless hyper-partisan debate by sound bite. But that maybe there would be some rational conversation taking place, during the food fight.)

[Thiebear]

With the EU recession and ours basically coming or here already?
Any tax increase will take the us back to 0 percent growth for 1%'s and -2% growth if the whole thing is struck down.
NOTHING is going to happen other than some QE4 and a lot of finger pointing.
(if the radio didn't lie to me the other morning on the way to work).

[China]

Kinda curious, the disparity between how many hits a Tailgate thread gets, and the thread topic's importance.

I figured that this thread would get a ton of posts. (I figured that most of them would be mindless hyper-partisan debate by sound bite. But that maybe there would be some rational conversation taking place, during the food fight.)

From experience I can tell you that some stupid stuff gets lots of hits, and some interesting (and/or important) stuff sometimes gets very little action.

[DogofWar1]

With the EU recession and ours basically coming or here already?
Any tax increase will take the us back to 0 percent growth for 1%'s and -2% growth if the whole thing is struck down.
NOTHING is going to happen other than some QE4 and a lot of finger pointing.
(if the radio didn't lie to me the other morning on the way to work).

The radio LIES!

Of course, so does TV, and the internet. And people. Everybody, the whole world.

The thing is, we've been going by the same old same old trickle down idea for decades. It hasn't worked yet, and it shows no signs of wanting to work. The democratic plan isn't ideal, but it gets the basic idea down, that for businesses to succeed you need a steady supply of people buying from said business, and you can only have that steady supply if people have money. The top 2%, as a population, makes little difference in terms of #s of peoples in a store. Moreover, the top 2% don't give back much on the dollar for tax cuts, something like .29 cents, while those in poverty basically give back dollar for dollar.

Add in how much people want us to lower the debt, and the democratic plan makes much more sense than the Republican plan at present.