The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Bernie Sanders Be Damned: Tax Bill Wins Senate Cloture Vote by Huge 83-15 Margin

Posted on | December 14, 2010 | 7 Comments

Late yesterday afternoon, the Senate held its cloture vote on the compromise deal that would extend the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Despite weeks of shameless demagoguery about tax cuts for “millionaires, billionaires and these big CEOs who ship jobs overseas” (to quote Harry Reid)  and the filibuster by Vermont’s socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, the vote to end debate was a lopsided cakewalk:

In a 83-15 vote, the Senate quashed a filibuster by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Va.).
Fifteen lawmakers voted against it, including five Republicans: Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Ensign (Nev.) and George Voinovich (Ohio).
Nine Democrats and one independent voted against the bill: Sens. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Pat Leahy (Vt.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Sanders.

How did they get 80+ votes for cloture? Pork. This bill contains more pork than a Carolina barbecue shack. Jimmie Bise sees it as a major defeat for Republicans, who “gave away hundreds of billions of dollars in pork for a few magic beans.”

Nevertheless, a poll found that 69 percent of the public supports the compromise bill, and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has video of John McCain “passionately arguing that the new porkier version of the bill is a total betrayal of last month’s election. And that he’ll be voting for it anyway.”

Despair not. There is still a glimmer of hope that the House Democrats will listen to their grassroots and reject the bill, or add a bunch of obnoxious amendments so heinous that Senate Republicans will have an excuse to reject it. While I’m generally in favor of Democrats screwing over their base by selling out to corporate lobbyists — anything that demoralizes the Democrat grassroots is a good thing — in this case, I’d like to see them stand up for their misguided socialist principles, which is the only way we’ll avoid this godawful bipartisan compromise.

But what are the real prospects for Courageous Principled Democrats wrecking this shoddy deal? Not good, my friends. Not good at all. 

The WaPo’s Greg Sargent expects Pelosi to give House Democrats a chance to huff and puff — put on a C-SPAN show of opposition for the benefit of their gullible constituents — and in the end, a majority will vote “yea” on this legislative gang-rape of the American people.

Because, let’s face it, we were askin’ for it, running around in short skirts and lipstick and telling pollsters we want to keep our tax cuts and get 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, too.

Voters to Congress: “Will you respect us in the morning?”

Congress to voters: “Hell, we don’t respect you now. What makes you think we’ll change our mind in the morning?”

The PBS News Hour captured the cloture-vote drama (I kid! I kid!):

If you’re still awake after that tedious exercise in (taxpayer-funded) journalistic somnambulance, you can find more at Memeorandum, with comment by Moe Lane, Paul Mirengoff, Michelle Malkin and more.

PREVIOUSLY:


Category: Taxes

Comments

Comments are closed.