from Michael Tomasky at the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/dec/03/congress-useconomy-your-senate-at-workFriday 3 December 2010 14.47 GMT
first, background from Politico:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45890_Page2.html ____ As the administration stepped up its most intense negotiations with congressional Republicans since President Barack Obama took office, an agreement to hold four Senate votes on the Bush-era tax cuts fell apart late Thursday night.
The apparent deal to schedule four votes Friday on tax cuts was scrapped after a Senate Republican objected to the Democratic proposal, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday...
...Senate Democrats left the Capitol Thursday believing Reid struck an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to hold a series of four votes Friday. Reid even scheduled a news conference after the caucus meeting to announce the deal.
But about 45 minutes after the caucus meeting broke up, Reid unexpectedly walked from the Senate floor to McConnell's office to try to salvage the faltering deal. The minority leader, however, had already left for the night. Reid stood in the lobby of the ornate Senate office, popping Hershey's Kisses while he waited for aides to reach McConnell by phone. Reid was then told that one Republican senator, who was not identified, objected to the agreement. ____Now apparently Reid will hold two votes today, one on raising taxes for households above $250,000, as the House did yesterday, and one on the Schumer plan, to raise them above $1 million. I would expect that both will have 50-something votes. But neither will have the filibuster-proof 60. It'll be very interesting to watch the usual Democratic suspects - Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and so on - and see whether they agree with Republicans that middle-class people's taxes should be held hostage to millionaires' taxes . . .
As for the Republicans, no one can seriously call any Senate Republican a moderate anymore. There are hard-shell conservative ideologues, and there are those who surely know better but just don't care about legislating with any integrity. Anyone who votes against especially the Schumer proposal is either one or the other.
The position represented by such a vote, that people who make more than $1 million a year must continue to get tax cuts, is an extreme radical position by the standards of American history. Remember, even if the Pelosi position were somehow to pass, multi-millionaires would also see taxes cut on the first $250,000 of their earnings, which in the average case would be about $6,700 or so.
from Bloomberg News:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-12/obama-s-plan-limits-tax-rise-for-most-high-earners-study-says.html Under the Democrats' plan to end a tax break for those earning more than $200,000 per individual or $250,000 per couple, the 3.8 million filers who fall in the $200,000 to $500,000 income range would pay $2 billion more in 2011 taxes, or an average of $532, according to a July 30 letter from the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.What is that - $532 on a $350,000 dollar earner?
read:
'Collapse of the Senate Deal' http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/dec/03/congress-useconomy-your-senate-at-work
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