Durbin `Not Very' Optimistic Bush Tax Cuts to Be Extended

[ProSense]

Durbin `Not Very' Optimistic Bush Tax Cuts to Be Extended

By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Richard Rubin

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said he is “not very” optimistic that the Bush-era tax cuts will be extended at this point.

Durbin said a preliminary discussion yesterday between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber’s top Republican, “did not go well.”

Durbin and other Senate Democrats today said the caucus hasn’t discussed how to proceed with legislation to prevent lower tax rates on income, capital gains and dividends from expiring as scheduled on Dec. 31.

“I don’t even know what the options are at this moment,” said Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat who serves on the tax-writing Finance Committee.

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This was before the WH meeting cancellation was announced.

[polichick]

1. Good - let them end and start over. nt

[rgbecker]

2. Democrats have to move this along without the Republicans.

If the Republicans can keep the tax cut for the middle class off until they take charge next January, they will pass a complete extension of Bush's cut for billionaires and everyone else and it will be the Democrats that will look like the evil ones voting against it.

Com'on Pelosi, get moving and get it passed without cuts for the billionaires.

[ProSense]

3. The tax cuts expire at the end of the year.

Even if the Republican House could pass tax cuts for the rich in January, it would likely die in the Senate.

[Cosmocat]

11. THEY HAVE TO GET A BILL UP ...

MINUS THE FRICKEN UPPER CLASS RATES ...

N

O

W

If they don't get that bill up NOW, while they have the power to do so in the house and get a vote one way or another in the senate, they WILL get S L A M M E D for letting ALL the tax cuts expire ...

For the every loving life of me, I don't get why they did not realize the positive position they WERE in with this and put votes up BEFORE the god darned election ...

NOW, these half brained, spineless pukes have to do it for friggen DEFENSIVE reasons ...

[karynnj]

12. Rgbecker's point is well taken - losing the House is a big deal

This is also why it was actually stupid that a vote on a pure middle class and below tax cut extension was not done. That would have first put them on record against a middle class tax cut and the Democrats in favor of it. It is also why the House and Senate would be stupid not to bring it to the floor right now - and dare the Republicans to defeat it. Even if we lose, we are better positioned to fight the type of bill that will come out of the House next year.

However, it looks like we will not bring this to the floor in the lame duck session. That though leads exactly to rgbecker's scenario. Their bill will pass the House, likely even with Democratic votes from Democrats knowing a "no" vote - on what will likely be the only bill on this - will hurt them. Then it comes to the Senate. Remember that even before the election there were Democrats - Bayh and the other blue dogs already saying to extend everything. It will come down to whether we have 40 Senators willing to filibuster it. We don't have the Republican echo chamber - so the idea of arguing that these cuts are not affordable when you have a whole lot of people who won speaking of the looming enormous deficit. In adition, the Republicans will argue that that is what America voted for. (Even though the media did not argue that 2006 was about limiting our time in Iraq.)

But, what to you and me appears a glaring contradiction - isn't to many people who have swallowed the Republican talking point - that Reaganomics works (and led to more than 2 decades of prosperity and jobs - yes, they count the Clinton era's successes as derived from Reagan decisions in the early 1980s!)

Look at comments, such as this one from a business person who attended a Scot Brown Chamber of Commerce speech:

"Others in the audience disagreed. Chamber member Laura Pelligrini says it will hurt the economy to raise taxes on the wealthy.

“I’m not that immersed in all the details of the tax cuts, but I think it all goes hand in hand,” she said."
http://www.wbur.org/2010/11/16/brown-taxes

(She actually flatters herself saying she is "not immersed in all the details of the tax cuts" - she is in fact hearing only talking points - Republican fluff economics analysis - written by people who know more for people who don't want to think hard. Fluff used in honor of the lightweight Senator Brown speaking of not wanting to work on "fluff".)

I really am very pessimistic that we will avoid this.

[ProSense]

13. Some good points, but one thought.

"This is also why it was actually stupid that a vote on a pure middle class and below tax cut extension was not done. That would have first put them on record against a middle class tax cut and the Democrats in favor of it."

I would have liked to have seen this vote before the break, but I'm not sure what it would have accomplished. With certainty, many of the blue dogs (some who lost) would have voted against it (possibly including the 26 who voted against Wall Street reform and those who voted against unemployment benefits).

Wall Street reform passed with a 20 vote margin. If there weren't enough votes to pass it, the bill would have failed with Democratic votes. I could easily see the CW building the case that a failed vote contributed to the losses, and I doubt this vote would have stemmed them.

The other thing a failed voted would have done is put pressure on Democrats to compromise, especially if the votes could be secured from within the party. Sure they could keep trying and watching it fail, but they would likely be seen as inflexible.

Reports say the President wanted a vote so my guess is that the votes weren't there (at least not yet) for the middle class tax cuts only.

[karynnj]

14. Good point

The Republicans might then have used the Congressional losses - that were going to happen in either case - to say that the results soon after that vote showed the country agreed with their position.

[WhiteTara]

16. "That would have first put them on record against a middle class tax cut"

Wow...what a winning strategy for the democrats.

Too bad we have toadies in the DNC who carry water for the corps and not the people.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. So the time to end the mess is now.

Let all the tax cuts expire, take the hit now, & be prepared to point out how egregious it is for the Rs to be pushing for huge tax cuts for the rich and peanuts for the rest of us. A really good politician could tie a can to the tails of the Rs on this one.

[RBInMaine]

9. Dems control the Senate and the WH. So they can't just pass shit.

[Diamonique]

10. You forgot something.

Until the end of the year, Democrats control the House too.

[OHdem10]

4. The GOP are holding out until the last minute so Obama caves

At the lsat minute before Jan. 1, they will vote

[ProSense]

6. As long as the vote

is on the middle-class tax cuts, no problem.

I'm not convinced Republicans want a temporary extension of the tax cuts for the rich or even have a plan for how to pay for it.

[Skink]

5. We'll be able to call them the Obama tax cuts for the middle class.

:bounce:

[Oceansaway]

8. he'll flip flop...just like he did

with Lieberman....

[sadbear]

15. So they'll let the bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire next year

so that they can implement the Obama middle class tax cuts in 2012? Genius!!! :sarcasm:

[Phx_Dem]

17. Why can't Ried/Pelosi put the middle-class cuts (only) up for a vote.

Let the new Congress deal with the tax cuts for the rich. If the pass, the GOP will be seen as giving tax cuts to the rich instead of reducing the deficit, and if they don't pass, who cares?

If the current Republicans want to vote against middle-class tax cuts because they don't include rich folks, let them. We'll have them on record as voting against tax cuts for the people who need them. Sounds like no-brainer to me, which probably means there is probably more to it than that. Where's Lawrence O'Donnell to exlain it to us?!

[ShadowLiberal]

18. They need to pass a bill cutting taxes for the middle class, then the GOP has to oppose it

We won't this fight on tax cuts until they hold actual votes on it.

Then we can use the GOP's own arguments against them about not passing the tax cuts creating uncertainty in the business world on taxes for next year.