The Senate resumed consideration of and voted 62-38 to invoke cloture on S. 1619, legislation dealing with China’s currency practices.
Later today the Senate will vote on the president’s stimulus bill, without Democrats’ latest surtax, as an amendment to the China bill. Guess they're trying to make sure both items are DOA (dead on arrival) in the U.S. House.
Yesterday, the House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill proposed by Rep Rob Bishop which will give the U.S. Border Patrol more access to public lands along the U.S border. The bill would prevent the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture from impeding, prohibiting or restricting the Border Patrol’s efforts within 100 miles of the border with Mexico and Canada. The legislation would allow the Border Patrol access to public lands in order to construct and maintain roads, build fences, patrol in vehicles, install, maintain, and operate surveillance equipment and sensors, fly aircraft and deploy temporary infrastructure, including forward operating bases. This bill which still pass the Us House and the Senate is vital to national security and protecting our borders. As many have heard on the news, due to restrictions by both the Department of interior and Department of Agriculture, their are National and Indian Affairs lands along our borders which are not patrolled or have only minimum access. These lands are being used by criminal elements as well as for illegal U.S.border crossing. Reported area have become know for rape, theft, and murder and as areas where foreign enemies are able to infiltrate the U.S.
The Washington Post writes today, “As they head into the 2012 campaign, Democrats are changing their definition of what it means to be rich. Forget about families making $250,000 a year. Today, the party is only interested in millionaires. In speeches across the country, President Obama has vigorously demanded that ‘millionaires and billionaires’ pay ‘their fair share’ in taxes. Last month, the White House said tax reform should ensure that billionaires such as Warren Buffett pay at least as much of their income to the Internal Revenue Service as middle-class taxpayers do.
“And on Wednesday came clear evidence of this shift: Senate Democratic leaders scrapped Obama’s proposal to cover the cost of his jobs bill by raising taxes on income over $250,000 a year, the old Democratic standard for defining the wealthy. Instead, they are proposing a 5.6 percent surtax on annual income of more than $1 million. Democrats say their new focus is intended to bolster support for Obama’s jobs package. But its more important purpose is to clarify the party’s economic agenda heading into next year’s election.”
Indeed, Roll Call points out that this new tax Democrats are proposing to pay for Obama’s latest stimulus package is based on politics. “[Senate Dem. Leader] Reid's decision to pay for the $447 billion package with a 5.6 percent surtax on income of more than $1 million starting in 2013 gives Democrats a poll-tested package that most can run on for the next year — even though the surtax itself is dead on arrival with Republicans. Indeed, Reid appears to be setting the stage for a major floor battle that will raise the specter of ‘class warfare’ and Obama recently called himself a ‘warrior for the middle class.’”
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell elaborated on Democrats’ latest partisan plan in a floor speech this morning: “What this week has shown, beyond any doubt, is that Democrats would rather talk about partisan legislation that they know won’t pass, than about actually passing legislation we know would create jobs. This week it was revealed that there wasn’t enough support within the Democrat ranks to pass the President’s so-called Jobs bill — it was simply too partisan. . . . The President himself has said that raising taxes is the last thing you want to do in a weak economy — even the White House predicts the unemployment rate will be high when this tax would kick in. So the real goal here for the Democrats, as far as I can tell, is entirely political — by arguing for a permanent tax hike to pay for a temporary stimulus, they essentially admitting they’re not interested in creating jobs – because proposing a partisan tax hike 13 months before an election won’t create a single job.”
Despite Democrats’ latest political posturing, it’s not clear that many Democrats will support the president’s stimulus bill, even with their new tax hike proposal. In 2009 some Democrats warned that a similar surtax would “negatively affect small businesses.” Meanwhile The Daily Caller reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) “is a ‘no’ vote right now with either the surtax or offsets on the table.” And Politico’s Manu Raju reports Democrat Nebraska Senator “Ben Nelson says he'll vote against cloture on motion to proceed to Obama jobs plan.”
Quoting Sen. McConnell sgain, “Republicans, along with some Democrats, have pro-growth solutions to help solve this crisis, but we will not stand for a permanent tax hike for a temporary stimulus that is largely a rehash of the same failed stimulus ideas this administration has already tried. This bill is the same wasteful spending, the same burdensome union giveaways, and the same temporary tax policy that has failed the American people the last two years.”
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