Harry Reid wins a big one on tax cuts (updated)

[ProSense]

Harry Reid wins a big one on tax cuts

by Joan McCarter

The political maneuvering worked for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and failed for Republican Mitch McConnell. The Senate just voted to advance a middle class tax cut extension by a vote of 51-48.

Reid finally succeeded in doing what Republicans have been fighting for nearly two years: separating the middle class tax cut extension from the tax cuts for the wealthy, and that breaks the hold the Republicans have had on this hostage.

It's on to the House, where Speaker John Boehner plans on holding a vote on extending all of the tax cuts, including for the rich, next week. This jams him up just a little bit. Republicans will try to say that there's a "blue slip" problem, that the Senate can't originate a tax or spending bill constitutionally, but it's a really thin reed for them to be grasping. Trying to use an arcane procedural argument for holding middle class tax cuts hostage to the wealthy just isn't going to cut it.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/25/1113648/-Harry-Reid-wins-a-big-one-on-tax-cuts

Updated to add roll call:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00184

[FarLeftFist]

1. Didn't the Transportation Bill pass even though it originated in the Senate? Boehner STFU!

[unblock]

5. all revenue laws procedurally originate in the house. it's a constitutional requirement. however,

if the senate passes something, then the house simply "originates" a slightly different bill, which the senate then passes.
the earlier senate bill technically is a different bill that never becomes law.


Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.


so boehner is technically right if the senate bill has anything that RAISES revenue (tax cuts only can originate in the senate, but it's rare that any tax bill has ONLY cuts; usually SOME tax somewhere in it is a hike) and one of his options is to simply ignore the senate bill.

however, that politically won't fly, never has, never will. as a matter of politics, the house must consider the bill and vote on SOMETHING relevant.

[karynnj]

26. But this is extending a tax cut which is a tax cut - so it is not raising revenues

It actually cuts taxes.

[unblock]

29. if there really is nothing else to it than lowering the marginal tax rates, then yes. however,

the vast majority of such bills also include many, many revenue measures, adding or taking away or modifying deductions or credits, etc. if *any* of those raises taxes on even one person, this clause of the constitution kicks in and the house must technically originate it.

remember that congress exists these days first and foremost be responsive to lobbyists and to pay back big campaign contributors, so passing "clean" bills without lots of ornamentation is not something congress is given to these days....

[Avalux]

2. Huge Win!!!! K&R. n/t

[emulatorloo]

3. Excellent.

Boehner's backed into a corner.

[Atman]

4. It's not "arcane."

I've had several people freak out on me about "Obamacare" after the SCOTUS determined it was a tax. They argued that since it was a tax, and was advanced by the Senate, that it was unconstitutional, since the Senate cannot advance tax legislation. There might be a point there, or it might just be gamesmanship among the branches of Congress. I honestly don't know.

[unblock]

8. this is technically false, give reid and the parliamentarian credit for at least knowing the rules:

true, the final version of the law was passed first by the senate and second by the house.
however, THAT is not a constitutional problem because the senate bill was not written from scratch -- it was itself an amended version of a revenue bill originated in the house. as noted above, the senate can't originate revenue bills from scratch, but it can propose amendments to revenut bills originated from the house -- a loophole you can drive a truck through, and they did:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act

The Senate failed to take up debate on the House bill and instead took up H.R. 3590, a bill regarding housing tax breaks for service members.[157] As the United States Constitution requires all revenue-related bills to originate in the House,[158] the Senate took up this bill since it was first passed by the House as a revenue-related modification to the Internal Revenue Code. The bill was then used as the Senate's vehicle for their health care reform proposal, completely revising the content of the bill.[159] The bill as amended incorporated elements of earlier proposals that had been reported favorably by the Senate Health and Finance committees.

Passage in the Senate was temporarily blocked by a filibuster threat by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, who sided with the Republican minority. Nelson's support for the bill was won after it was amended to offer a higher rate of Medicaid reimbursement for Nebraska.[125] The compromise was derisively referred to as the "Cornhusker Kickback"[160] (and was later repealed by the reconciliation bill). On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, all but one Republican voting against and one senator (Jim Bunning, R-Ky.) not voting.[161]

On January 19, 2010, Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown was elected to the Senate, having campaigned on giving the Republican minority the 41st vote needed to sustain a filibuster, even famously signing autographs as "Scott 41."[125][162][163]

[edit] House

Although White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel argued for a less ambitious bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back, dismissing Emanuel's scaled-down approach as "Kiddie Care".[164][165] Obama's siding with comprehensive reform and the news that Anthem Blue Cross in California intended to raise premium rates for its patients by as much as 39% gave him a new line of argument for reform.[164][165] Obama unveiled a health care reform plan of his own, drawing largely from the Senate bill. On February 22 he laid out a "Senate-leaning" proposal to consolidate the bills.[166] On February 25, he held a meeting with leaders of both parties urging passage of a reform bill.[125] The summit proved successful in shifting the political narrative away from the Massachusetts loss back to health care policy.[165]

The most viable option for the proponents of comprehensive reform was for the House to abandon its own health reform bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and to instead pass the Senate's bill, and then pass amendments to it with a different bill allowing the Senate to pass the amendments via the reconciliation process.[164][167]

Initially, there were not enough supporters to pass the bill, thus requiring its proponents to negotiate with a group of pro-life Democrats, led by Congressman Bart Stupak. The group found the possibility of federal funding for abortion was substantive enough to cause their opposition to the bill. Instead of requesting inclusion of additional language specific to their abortion concerns in the bill, President Obama issued Executive Order 13535, reaffirming the principles in the Hyde Amendment. This concession won the support of Stupak and members of his group and assured passage of the bill.[168]

The House passed the bill with a vote of 219 to 212 on March 21, 2010, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it.[169] The following day, Republicans introduced legislation to repeal the bill.[170] Obama signed the original bill into law on March 23, 2010.[171]

[Atman]

9. That was essentially my argument after the SCOTUS ruling...

The Senate didn't do it on their own, they merely worked off of an existing house bill, therefore there was no Constitutional challenge.

[unblock]

11. i imagine you got the usual republican tribal response to speaking the truth?

something equivalent to "rush told me it was unconstitutional, so i'm not going to listen to your liberal pelosi lies"?

[Atman]

25. Exactly. Very comical.

"Just because the SCOTUS says it's Constititional doesn't make it so!"

Uh, well, yes in fact, that is exactly what makes it so. Who else you gonna ask to rule on it? They really just didn't get it.

[freshwest]

21. Thanks for your posts. It is informed and detailed posts explaining the work that goes into these,

That makes me fluff off the complaint, 'See the Democrats don't care, they didn't do anything for us' mantra. Anyone who follows these things, sees how many variations are fought over and individuals doing the work, that they call 'without balls' or 'sellouts' is so uninformed as to be useless to talk about these things about.

You can tell their news sources, by the take they have on Democrats, especially when they say there is no differnce in the two parties. And I know where that comes from, straight from David Icke and Alex Jones. All it does is demoralize people who are uninformed. My representatives are as hard headed and dogged, as determined as any Teabagger to see our interests come to pass.

Your post shows the input of Reid, Pelosi and Obama working to get things done for the American people, yet the cheap shots continue. I hope you post a lot more often.

[cindyperry2010]

6. i guess i should feel bad for ole mcconnell but

[Jessy169]

24. Did you see the look on McConnell's face?

If a prune had human emotions such as shock, dismay, regret, horror and disbelief and if a prune could feel all of those emotions intensely just long enough to pose for a single picture -- that would be the look on McConnell's freakish face.

[cindyperry2010]

27. post it PLEASE

my cable has been out

[bluestateguy]

7. He managed to hold Pryor, Landrieu, Nelson (NE) and Manchin

At least on the 250,000 cutoff, which is an impressive feat.

[Garion_55]

10. thats a lot of republicans

voting against a tax cut. how do they expain that to their base?

[julian09]

17. I think only repugs were Collins [ME] and Brown [MA] NT

[BumRushDaShow]

12. K&R

Next up, Cheeto!

[Whisp]

13. wow, this is a BFD!

I'm listening to MSNBC and don't hear anything on that, yet. In fact most of the day the regular shows weren't on and some crime crap was playing like they do on the weekends.

Anyone else notice today was weird there?

[julian09]

15. They had some pre olympic coverage went to cnn. nt

[Tx4obama]

16. MSNBC is talking about it now.

MSNBC daytime programing will be weird until the Olympics are over.

I didn't see any crime shows on there today, only sports. Did you have the TV on or live-streaming online?

[Whisp]

20. had the TV on

one was a story about some treasure hunter ripping people off.

thanks for that info, forgot about the Olympics. ha.

[Tx4obama]

23. Hmmm. Well I had the TV on around 2:30pm and saw sports, MAYBE ...

after the games ended they put in a crime show as filler until Al's shows started.

I don't have a clue.

I went over to CNN until Al's show started

[rurallib]

14. Lieberman can't be gone soon enough.

[julian09]

19. Maybe he will be Rmoneys VP NT

[DCBob]

18. Very good. This puts some pressure on House GOPers.

Voting against this will not look good to regular folks.

[freshwest]

22. Bookmarking for the informative posts on this thread. And thanks, Harry!

[SemperEadem]

28. well, I hope someone is assigned to go over it with a fine toothed comb

to root out loopholds that can'tor's office will attempt to write into it in order to water it down.