Many will recall the great ad by David Zucker.
Well guess what? The future is now:
One of the first key procedural votes in the Democrat-controlled House last week established legislative rules that Republicans say will make it easier to raise taxes by a simple majority vote.
The straight party-line vote received little attention Thursday as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, was elected speaker of the House. But Republican leaders and conservative tax-cut advocates said it opened up a huge loophole in a Republican-imposed rule drawn from the Republicans' 1994 Contract with America, which requires a supermajority, or three-fifths vote, to raise taxes.
Democrats unanimously voted down a motion offered by Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio that would have prevented them from waiving the rule, a move that tax-cutters said signaled the Democrats' intention to raise taxes between now and the 2008 elections.
"American taxpayers need to hold on to their wallets because the new House rules concerning taxes are not worth the paper they're written on," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).
"After spending an entire year on the campaign trail claiming she will not raise taxes, the first vote Nancy Pelosi brings to the floor for a vote as speaker will open the door to billions and billions of dollars of tax increases over the next two years," Mr. Norquist said.
And to think many in the middle thought Zucker was just joshing.
How did those new members to Congress vote on this measure, even those who ran on a "no new taxes" platform?
Democratic officials saw Mr. Boehner’s motion as a move to tie their hands on future tax policy, and the majority leadership effectively held all of its troops in line to oppose it, even though some of its members ran on pledges not to raise taxes.
And there you have it. The new blood in the Democratic party was unwilling to go against Pelosi and company. So here we are. The Democrats are threatening to pull funding for our troops who are risking everything for this country while at the same time they are planning to dig deep, very deep into your wallets.
But at least the Republicans were taught a lesson huh?
"But at least the Republicans were taught a lesson huh?"
It was the Republicans who lost it. They (we) strayed too far into Dumocrat territory. Only time will tell if they (we) actually learned anything. I tend to doubt it.
Funny thing is .. the bragged about sending a message before the election
But now they are running at high speed and denying it
But Republican leaders and conservative tax-cut advocates said it opened up a huge loophole in a Republican-imposed rule drawn from the Republicans' 1994 Contract with America, which requires a supermajority, or three-fifths vote, to raise taxes.
These people have nothing to complain about. The Republican leadership in Congress (and the current administration in the White House) did something even worse than this -- by incorporating sunset provisions in its own tax cuts that enable Congress to raise taxes WITHOUT EVEN CASTING A VOTE AT ALL.
Right. That's precisely why this country had no business sending those troops to Iraq in the first place.