I don’t know if any of this stuff is really believable. I watched a gloomy couple of hours of debate this morning when the Republicans held off any changes in the Obama-McConnell Tax Cut extension, keeping Democratic changes from coming into play. Now I’m watching as all the amendments proposed by Republicans and Bernie Sanders get voted down (they need a 2/3 majority under these rules), which, I think, it was previously agreed upon.
I guess they will then put the 61 votes necessary behind the Bill as written (and complain about how they HAD to do it… especially 
from the Democratic side)… and then it will go to the House and go through the same kind of brouhaha with the same results.
I wish I felt that the main motivation here wasn’t “vote for it now so we can go home for Christmas” or some other pathetic excuse. But it seems pretty clear that this will be a day cheered on by the rich, who will make out like bandits for the next couple of years. Sanders’ amendment, which is currently being voted (down, I’m sure… there’s no way it can get the 67 Aye votes necessary) which would remove the tax cuts from the top 2%. As I watch them muddle around on the Senate floor I am more and more aware that this is a crowd of rich people… many who became rich by becoming Senators. Why would they vote against themselves?
And then there’s my Senator, Joe Manchin, and Joe “the sleeze” Lieberman who are voting NO with the Republicans on taxing the rich.
This is going to be even more fun in January when there are more Republicans in the Senate and a Republican Majority in the House. We might as well give our country to the Chinese now and get it over with.
Filed under: budget, Congress, Economics, event, Finance, Legal, News, Opinion, Politics, President Obama, Taxes, Television, vote, Warning, Word from Bill Tagged: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, C-Span2, Congress, Democratic, Government, House, Joe Manshin, Mitch McConnell, Politics, Republicans, Tax cut, Television
