Yes, the Senate will vote on Obama’s tax cut extension

[kpete]

Source: The Plum Line

Here’s what happened. Mitch McConnell asked for two votes, one on the GOP’s plan to extend all the tax cuts, including for income over $250,000, and another on Obama’s plan to extend the tax cuts on income just under $250,000. Reid objected. So what actually happened is that Reid didn’t want to hold a vote on both the GOP plan and Obama’s proposal.

There will, in fact, be a vote on Obama’s plan, a Reid spokesman confirms.

“There will absolutely be a vote on President Obama’s tax plan this work period,” Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson emails.

Republicans have been arguing that vulnerable Democrats won’t want this vote, and that Dems may even vote against it. How many Dems would defect? Politico yesterday quoted several Senate Democrats saying they prefer a cutoff of $1 million or $500,000, but none of them said outright that they’d vote against Obama’s plan.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/yes-the-senate-will-vote-on-obamas-tax-cut-extension/2012/07/11/gJQAb1Y7cW_blog.html

[williesgirl]

1. Some Dem unity would be welcome for a change. rec'd

[valerief]

9. That would mean cleaning house of the DINOs. nt

[freshwest]

13. And losing numerical majority that prevents the GOP setting what bills are considered. Just sayin'

Generally speaking:

In those states where vulnerable Democrats or as people like to call them, DINOs are based, they will NOT be replaced by progressives. That is a pipe dream. They will be replaced by Tea Partiers who will be regressive on evey single issue, as proven by House majority actions and what they have done state by state.

If we toss the much despised DINOs out, then the same way the Tea Party is running the House, they will run the Senate. There are no easy choices in this matter. DINOs, are aggravating, but they fit the states they represent. And their being numbered as Democrats is what sets the stage for committee chairmanships, what bills will or will not be considered. It was only Reid and the Democratic majority that stopped the Blunt bill and pushed other human rights measures, and fights back the regressives.

People bash Reid for being weak, but they have no idea of the tightrope that man is walking on. As are these people in red states who are at least helping to set the stage for a progressive agenda. It's up the grassroots to turn the red states blue enough to elect progressives, but only when there is a strong blue voting block.

We have not done the ground work with our associations in most states the way the GOP has. And we certainly don't have their financial resources and the media to whip up grassroots support. We cannot gleefully trash a DINO and not cede a state to the GOP in reality.

The Democratic Party remains the party that tries to check the power of unlimited money, the GOP. That we fail is not an issue of weakness or low morals. Those going against the powerful have always been outgunned, or there would be more equitable outcome throughout history.

[Scootaloo]

15. Not that we'd know...

Since nobody tries to run progressives in these areas. It's constant appeasement strategy.

[1StrongBlackMan]

19. No one tries to run ...

Progressives in these areas?

Don't you have that a little backwards ... shouldn't it be "No Progressives try to run in these areas?"

Secondly, do you think there is a reason no Progressive gain traction in these areas?

[WCGreen]

21. I think it would mean to get a bunch of new senators who are more

concerned with the future of the US than their personal stake in the senate.

The people will like this but they know that the GOP will hammer them as voting for the biggest tax increase in the history of the universe, or whatever bullshit Frank Luntz comes up with, and that it will cause them to answer their charges.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Do we now finally understand why a Public Option was NEVER going to happen?

Cowardly Democrats in the Senate would never vote for it!!

This tax vote is a case in point.

[corkhead]

3. Yes, we can't afford to lose any of our so-called Democrats, even if they vote like Republicons

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. I agree. But we can't be naive about that. If the 50-state strategy allows for all kinds of Democrat

to serve, then we can't be upset when we liberals don't get exactly what we want. A public option was never going to happen. I don't care how much we scream and throw a fit over it. Joe LIEberman wasn't going for it, and neither were Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Max Baucus or the two Nelsons. I will never forget making phone calls, day after day, to these senators' offices and getting the run around from them or some of them saying "no." A public option was never going to happen, no matter how much we or President Obama wanted one.

[lark]

12. Incorrect about Bill Nelson

I talked to his staff and they said he would support the public option. It was Ben Nelson who was adamantly against it.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

23. I know but some of them were telling us that they'd support it but didn't fight for it or gave us

double speak.

[leftyohiolib]

6. that's correct. i hope the "potus sucks cuz he promised a public option so now im not voting 4 him"

crowd see's this and understands this

[harun]

8. They should have made them vote against it then. Let everyone know the reason

why the world sucks is Ben Nelson and Max Baucus.



?zz=1

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

11. Yep! Maybe so, but Harry Reid was too cowardly at the time.

[wordpix]

18. nice pics!

[barbtries]

4. i think i'll write to my republican senator

for all the good it will do. i plan to write something like, could you for once in your career do the right thing for the american people instead of the republican party?!?!?!

[Flatulo]

5. Jeezus, if $500,000 annual income earners need a friggin' break, then

the Senate should come here and line up to kiss my old cracked ass.

Seriously, Dems can't agree that $250,001 is a lot of money? That's over 8X median income.

[rfranklin]

7. Here's a product that will help...

[Skittles]

20. now now

don't be sexist

[wordpix]

17. aw, c'mon, with private schools, expensive health care, McMansions & 2nd homes, $500K is nothing

[Flatulo]

22. My family and I have lived like royalty for 35 years

on my engineer salary. New cars, nice home, private college, you name it.

The best year we ever had, 2009, we had a combined income of about $170K. We live outside Boston in an expensive town, but we have a modest home and no second home or lake cottage or whatever. Since I've become permanantly disabled, we're living on a combined income of about $80K, and we still want for nothing. Yeah, the house is paid for, as is the college education, so good for me. I saved and saved and paid all my bills because I could.

The people I worked for, like upper managers and directors, made close to $200K. These people had second homes on Cape Cod and speedboats, and their kids went to the best private schools. I don't begrudge them their high incomes because they worked non-stop, even when on a so-called vacation, and a few even worked themselves to death.

What's my point? $250K is a fuck-ton, a shit-load, a whopping mound of money. I will never, as long as I live, feel bad for anyone making that kind of loot. I don't give a fuck where you live, that would be a lot of money on the fucking moon.

If our congress can't understand this, the we should throw out the whole lot of them and elect people who get it. The country is fucking broke from two wars and a three-year recession. If people making $250,001 annually can't throw a few more bucks into the pot then all is lost.

[DCKit]

25. "...that would be a lot of money on the fucking moon."

But oy, the commute!!!!

[DallasNE]

14. Is Reid Bringing This Up Under Reconciliation?

Otherwise a Republican filibuster dooms any chance of passage. And how might Snowe vote on this?

[wordpix]

16. these spineless jellyfish had better stick together or get labeled the 1%-er corruptibles they are

[drm604]

24. Won't the Republicans filibuster this?