TMP : How The Dems Championed The Issue Before Letting It Fall Apart

[Mass]

A long timeline of the issue.

The amazing thing here is that Baucus was on board for a vote. So, it is basic cowardice for Dems not to take the vote. Baucus is not known for his leftist, anti-corporatist tendencies.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/tax-cut-tick-tock-how-the-dems-championed-the-issue-before-it-fell-apart.php?ref=fpb

Tax Cut Tick Tock: How The Dems Championed The Issue Before Letting It Fall Apart
Christina Bellantoni | September 24, 2010, 3:52PM

President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
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Barack Obama, Bush Tax Cuts, Harry Reid, House Democrats, House Republicans, Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democrats, Tax Cuts, White House


Democrats still fervently promise they'll be passing a middle class tax cut by the end of the year, even though pre-election votes were kicked down the road.

Two weeks ago, everyone seemed to be chugging along on the same train. So where did it go off the rails?

TPM interviewed a dozen sources in the White House and on Capitol Hill, and a picture emerged of the Democrats first being in agreement and energized... and then getting deflated just in time to head home and face voters.

Here's our brief history of the tax cut tussle:

May 26, 2001: The Senate, with just 12 Democrats on board, passed George W. Bush's tax cuts. In the House, 28 Democrats joined Republicans to vote "yes." They cost $1.35 trillion and were set to expire in 2011 to comply with Congressional rules, triggered by the GOP's use of reconciliation, that required they either expire within 10 years or not increase the deficit. (More on that here.)
...

Late July 2010: Democratic leadership from the House and Senate gathered for an in-person meeting on the Hill. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said he would fight for a vote for the middle class cuts. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed as well. Pelosi laid out her preference for a vote, saying, "We think we can make this case."
...
Sept. 2, 2010 President Obama, Pelosi and Reid held a conference call focused on tax cuts. Two Hill sources said Obama asked the leaders what they wanted to do, allowing them to state their preference. Both Pelosi and Reid told Obama they wanted a vote before the election, the sources said.

"The White House was listening to the hill to see what the next steps would be," one source said.

...

Sept. 12, 2010: Minority Leader John Boehner took Obama's bait, saying on CBS' Face the Nation that he would vote for the middle class cuts if that were his only option. Each of our sources said this was a major turning point in the debate. "That was the moment, oh yeah," an aide said. "The Republicans blinked."

...

Sept. 14, 2010: Congress returned to session. Stan Greenberg presented the House Democratic caucus with a poll showing tax cuts are a winning issue for November. Pelosi pled with nervous members to frame it back home that they are for the middle class and Republicans are for the rich. "A lot of people were impressed," one aide said.

...

Sept. 15, 2010: The GOP sounded a note of unity on tax cuts and called for the current tax rates to be frozen in place. Things started to fall apart for Democrats as 31 conservative members (including Matheson) sent Pelosi a letter asking for a vote on extending all of the cuts. Leadership still talked about the possibility, but more members start clamoring for an early adjournment. House Democrats don't do a formal whip count because it's looking less likely they can pass the tax cuts.


Yesterday: In the morning, all signs pointed to abandoning ship. TPM breaks the news that the Senate was going to scrap its plans to vote before Senate Democrats headed into their caucus luncheon.

During the lunch, several senators spoke up and pressed Reid to have the vote.

A source familiar with the meeting said Baucus spoke, along with Sens. Al Franken, Bob Menendez, Debbie Stabenow and John Kerry. Those Democrats said they asked Reid to call for a vote "to show contrast and show Democrats stand for the middle class."

But bowing to pressure, Reid formally announced the vote won't happen at the end of the day. The House announced its schedule for next week will include just two days of voting, Wednesday and Thursday.

...
Next Thursday night: Members are scheduled to go home and face the voters for the final stretch before the midterm elections.
...

Jan. 1, 2011: Without action, tax rates will go up to the pre-Bush levels.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. A political party determined to grasp defeat by the horns.

It ain't the professional left that is doing in the Democratic Party. It is the congressional delegation itself, in both houses, that cannot do anything other than plan their own demise. They have mastered the art of losing, which Ms. Bishop tells me, is easy to do.

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop

[leveymg]

2. 3 failures stand out: #1 House Whip doesn't lock down votes; #2 Reid doesn't schedule vote

#3 Max Baucus mismanaged the Bill. Steny Hoyer, Harry Reid, Max Baucus. My, how the legislative history of the 111th Congress would have been different without them.