{"id":8479,"date":"2012-07-26T07:16:17","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T14:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=8479"},"modified":"2012-07-26T07:16:17","modified_gmt":"2012-07-26T14:16:17","slug":"the-important-vote-that-doesnt-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/26\/the-important-vote-that-doesnt-count\/","title":{"rendered":"The Important Vote that Doesn’t Count"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Senate held two votes without filibusters.  Have you regained consciousness?  Apparently McConnell allowed it so Republicans can claim that Democrats voted to raise YOUR taxes.  Unless YOU are a millionaire or billionaire, that is a lie.  The Republican bill would extend all the Bush tax cuts.  Since they are already slated to expire, voting against their bill was not a vote to raise taxes.  It was a vote to leave earlier legislation unchanged.  The Democratic Bill would lower rates to present levels for all but the top 2% as soon as the Bush tax cuts expire.  It is not a tax increase.  It is an entirely new tax cut for the poor and middle classes.  It did put the entire Republican Party on record voting against a tax cut for 98% of Americans.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"26bush_tax_cuts\"The Senate voted 51 to 48 Wednesday to approve highly contested legislation that would raise taxes on high income earners while lowering taxes on middle income earners.<\/font><\/p>\n

Vice President Joe Biden made the trip to Capitol Hill to preside over the vote on the Democratic measure, dubbed the Middle Class Tax Cut Act. It aims to raise taxes on high income earners while preserving tax cuts for 114 million middle income taxpayers. Democrats estimate that would save every person $1,000 to $1,600 in 2013 should it become law.<\/font><\/p>\n

"Republicans should not hold the middle class tax cut hostage," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said in remarks prior to the vote. "All you folks who love to give tax cuts to the millionaires, our bill does that–the first $250,000 they make they are treated just like a middle class family."\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n

…The president issued this statement after the vote:<\/font><\/p>\n

With the Senate’s vote, the House Republicans are now the only people left in Washington holding hostage the middle-class tax cuts for 98% of Americans and nearly every small business owner<\/strong>. The last thing a typical middle class family can afford is a $2,200 tax hike at the beginning of next year. It’s time for House Republicans to drop their demand for another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans<\/strong> and give our families and small businesses the financial security and certainty that they need. Our economy isn’t built from the top-down, it’s built from a strong and growing middle class, and that’s who we should be fighting for. <\/font><\/p>\n

… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <PBS<\/a>><\/p>\n

Photo credit: National People’s Action<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

The following worthless scum goose-stepped with the Republicans by opposing tax cuts for the 98%:<\/font><\/p>\n

LIEberman (Asshole-CT), Webb (DINO-VA)<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

One bought DINO bastard goose-stepped with the Republicans by favoring the Bush tax cuts for the 2%.<\/font><\/p>\n

Pryor (DINO-AR)<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the Constitution requires that all bills pertaining to taxes must begin in the House, this bill was technically dead the second it passed. Ezra Klein covered this story and interviewed Norm Ornstein and Tom Mann to show why this is the worst Congress in History, and that Republicans have been responsible for it.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that Ornstein is no bleeding heart liberal. He represents the AEI, an extreme right organization strongly associated with the Neocon movement. For him to admit the truth about today’s Republican Party required considerable courage.  I was shocked to see it.  Kudos!<\/font><\/p>\n

Although the bill did not start in the House, this would not be the first time that the Senate has initiated a tax bill, and the House has taken it up, introduced and passed it, and then returned it to the Senate for approval. Thus the only thing standing between the US and the fiscal cliff is Republican insistence on welfare for the rich. That\u2019s  what makes "off the cliff" the best strategy.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Senate held two votes without filibusters.  Have you regained consciousness?  Apparently McConnell allowed it so Republicans can claim that Democrats voted to raise YOUR taxes.  Unless YOU are a millionaire or billionaire, that is a lie.  The Republican bill would extend all the Bush tax cuts.  Since they are already slated to expire, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}