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| Taxmageddon Is Coming January 1, 2013 |
The House reconvened and continued debate on various bills. As in the past, a majority of non-public discussions are held off the floor or in respective committees. Yesterday the House debated without final vote the following bills:
H.R. 459 — "To require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States before the end of 2012, and for other purposes."
H.R. 6082 — "To officially replace, within the 60-day Congressional review period under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, President Obama's Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) with a congressional plan that will conduct additional oil and natural gas lease sales to promote offshore energy development, job creation, and increased domestic energy production to ensure a more secure energy future in the United States, and for other purposes."
The House passed by voice vote: H.R. 4157 — "To prohibit the Secretary of Labor from finalizing a proposed rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 relating to child labor."
The Senate reconvened today at 9:30 AM and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3412, Democrats’ plan that would raise taxes on small businesses and revive high death tax rates.
At 2:15 PM, the Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to (i.e. whether to take up) S. 3412.
This morning Leader McConnell asked to also have votes on the Republican tax plan, which would extend current tax rates, and President Obama’s plan, which would raise taxes on small businesses and many other Americans. He also proposed a simple majority vote to put Democrats on the record as to whether they support the tax increases in their plans. If Majority Leader Harry Reid agrees, there could be up to 3 votes on the various tax plans this afternoon.
Human Events writes today, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has an idea for cutting through all the parliamentary maneuvers and political kabuki theater: hold votes on Wednesday, in succession, on all three of the current proposals for avoiding Taxmageddon this January. Senate Democrats have been notably reticent to actually vote on any of the legislative props they’ve been waving around, particularly President Obama’s idea for taxing the hell out of small business owners, which his own Party regards with all the enthusiasm of a dead spider floating at the bottom of a coffee mug. . . . Republicans want to stave off Taxmageddon for all Americans, while the Democrats want to exclude certain politically disfavored groups. . . . Virtually everyone, pointedly including an earlier version of Barack Obama, knows that raising taxes in a recessionary economy is a horrible idea.”
So Leader McConnell went to the floor this morning asking for votes on all three plans. The Hill notes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Republicans would allow a simple majority vote on the two tax proposals. ‘Republicans will allow a simple majority vote on the two proposals,’ McConnell said on the floor Wednesday. ‘We’ll have a simple majority vote on the Democrats’ plan and Republican plan and I would also recommend we take a simple majority vote on President Obama’s plan.’ . . . McConnell said he believes lawmakers’ positions should be on the record. ‘The only way to force people to take a stand is to make sure that today’s votes truly count,’ McConnell said. ‘By setting these votes at a 50-vote threshold, nobody on the other side can hide behind a procedural vote while leaving their views on the actual bill itself a mystery to the people who sent them here.’”
Reporters were quick to recognize the implications of Leader McConnell’s move to have simple majority votes on the various tax plans. Liberal news TPM writes, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid to show his cards. For days, Reid’s been signaling that he has at least 50 votes to pass legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts up to income of $250,000 — a close facsimile of the tax plan at the heart of President Obama’s re-election campaign.”
Roll Call points out, “The move to a simple-majority vote would ensure that the Democrats lose at least one vote on their plan. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has already announced that he would support a procedural vote to call up the Reid measure but oppose its actual passage without changes. Lieberman, who is not running for re-election in November, says that further tax code changes should take place this year.”
Other Capitol Hill reporters tweeted that the move puts significant pressure on a number of Democrats. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell observed, “Chess game in Senate. Mitch McConnell says Rs will allow simple majority vote, not 60, on Dems' tax cuts bill. Pushes D's in tough races.” And Carl Hulse of the New York Times tweeted, “Senate tax debate just got interesting with GOP decision to not block votes. Folks now recalculating, esp. those in tough 2012 races.”
And, Roll Call points out another important factor, “McConnell admitted that under most circumstances, he would muster the votes to kill the Reid measure using Senate procedural rules. In this case, he says, it really does not matter because the House is sure to reject the bill that wouldn’t extend all of the Bush tax cuts. Not only will the GOP-controlled House oppose the measure on the merits, the bill runs afoul of Constitutional provisions that require revenue bills to originate in that chamber. ‘The only reason we won’t block it today is that we know it doesn’t pass constitutional muster and won’t become law. If the Democrats were serious, they’d proceed to a House-originated revenue bill as the Constitution requires,’ McConnell said.”
Of course, on the merits, the Democrats’ tax plan is bad all around. Jobs groups oppose it, warning it would “impose a massive tax hike on American businesses,” “result in higher taxes for the vast majority of manufacturers,” and “do very great harm to the middle class it purports to help.” Further, the American Farm Bureau Federation sounds the alarm that the Senate Democrats’ bill raises the death tax again, saying it “fails to provide any estate tax relief which would allow a $1 million per person exemption and 55 percent top rate to be reinstated on Jan. 1, 2013. A $1 million exemption is not high enough to protect a typical farm or ranch able to support a family from estate taxes…”
As Leader McConnell said, “That’s what today’s votes are all about: about showing the people who sent us here where we stand. We owe it to the American people to let them know whether we actually think it’s a good idea to double down on the failed economic policies of the past few years, or whether we support a new approach; whether we think it’s a good idea to raise taxes on nearly a million business owners at a moment when millions of Americans are struggling to find work; or to do no harm and commit to future reform.”
Tags: Washington, D.C. tax proposals, democrats, Taxmageddon Is Coming,
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