Posted on 12/16/2010 4:43:33 PM PST by Second Amendment First
The tax-cut deal that brought the president and congressional Republicans together in post-election unity tore House Democrats apart, enough to delay the vote Thursday but not derail eventual final passage.
But President Barack Obama’s deal with Republicans complicated an already chaotic legislative endgame for the 111th Congress and threatening to scar House Democrats’ relations with their leaders and their president well into the 112th.
After a days' worth of fits and starts, the bill appeared headed toward a floor vote late Thursday or in the wee hours of Friday morning. But House leaders struggled mightily to position it for passage.
Liberal Democrats, already furious over both the substance of the deal and their absence from negotiations, rallied Thursday morning against House Democratic leaders’ plans to hold votes on two versions of the bill, differentiated only by their handling of the estate tax.
Their protest, which spilled out of a private caucus meeting and onto the House floor, forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to retreat behind closed doors to work out another solution.
Democratic leaders labored late Thursday to devise a plan to send the bill to the president. As of late Thursday, they had settled on a new rule for debate allowing multiple votes on the estate tax but not one, as liberals had hoped, on a full progressive substitute measure.
The tax-cut package, which the Senate passed Wednesday on an 81-19 vote, would extend the current tax rates on individual income, capital gains and dividends for two years, impose a tax of 35 percent on estate income above $5 million and continue unemployment insurance for another 13 months.
Regardless of the outcome, the dramatic show of strength by liberals reflects their fear that the president’s deal-making on tax rates for the wealthiest Americans is a harbinger of capitulation as he campaigns for re-election over the next two years.
Their anger scuttled a carefully crafted leadership plan designed to give rank-and-file lawmakers an opportunity to vote on a higher estate tax – a 45 percent rate above a $3.5 million threshold – while ensuring that the bill would get to the president.
It was so meticulously designed that liberals revolted over the manipulation – too cute by half, they signaled.
Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who will be the top Democrat on the Budget Committee come January, tried to funnel frustration with the overall bill into a focus on just the estate tax, which he portrayed as a political and policy winner for his caucus. But in the end, liberals viewed too many elements of the bill as odious — as painful giveaways to the rich—to target just one for change.
Republicans, on the other hand, remained on the sideline, giddy at the deal they were destined to secure.
“I’m trying to remember something that we passed under Bush that was this good,” one senior House Republican aide said.
Indeed, the bill combines a series of tax breaks that Bush didn’t dare to put in one piece of legislation during his presidency – a cornucopia that took him several years to attain.
But with Democrats tripping over their own feet, Republicans enjoyed a view from the sidelines. They vowed to vote against the motion to proceed to debate without significant concessions from Democrats.
The unifying element of the left-flank revolt was procedural – an argument about the framework of the debate, with its roots in discontent with the policy. Under the parameters for debate devised by Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) – with the guiding hand of Democratic leadership – the House would’ve been forced to take two votes. The first would have been on the Senate-passed bill, with Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s (D-N.D.) estate tax provision. If that failed – the likely scenario – the House would have then moved on the Senate-passed bill.
Progressives argued that this never gave them an up-or-down vote on the legislation. Slaughter seemed prepared to rewrite the rule to provide that vote, along with an hour of debate on the floor to gripe about the legislation.
Still, liberals differed over which parts of the bill were most offensive. Some were apoplectic over the cut in payroll taxes for Social Security, which would put money in taxpayers’ pockets but threaten to shorten the lifespan of the program. Others targeted a continuation of current rates for top-end income. Another set didn’t like the price tag.
“I was going to vote against the rule no matter what, because we should be allowed more amendments to make more significant changes to the package,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), a 23-year veteran of the House who has been vocally opposed to the tax compromise. “The procedural stuff isn’t troublesome to me. I’m not sure how many people are in the position that they want to vote for the rule but they won’t because they don’t want to condone the Senate deal before they get to vote against the senate deal. Because then that’s kind of like John Kerry, right?”
But even the author of the very amendment under fire – the retiring Pomeroy – conceded it had little chance to move forward.
“I’ll acknowledge there’s a new influence and that is the Christmas tree,” Pomeroy said Thursday, referring to a basket of more narrowly targeted tax breaks for businesses. “You talk about a Christmas tree bill? That’s the not Christmas tree we’re talking about. People want to go home to see their Christmas tree. There’s an allure, a power, a substantial power to just do what needs to be done to get home. And we’ll lose some votes because of that.”
And should that amendment get to the Senate, it would be dead-on-arrival, poised for a nearly immediate U-turn to the House. The same fate would await any amendment altering the central elements of the president’s deal with Republicans.
Rep. Rob Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat cozy with his leadership, said he told the Jewish Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) he “has a better chance of being pope” than the Senate has of passing the changed estate tax language.
House Democrats late Thursday seemed to be heading toward a Friday vote – a mere day before the government’s funding was also poised to run out. There was talk about allowing progressive Democrats the chance to offer up their own alternative of the bill – late Thursday, Reps. Peter Welch (Vt.), Anthony Weiner (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.) huddled with leadership in Pelosi’s office.
Democrats insist that their caucus simply wasn’t concentrated on the procedure before Thursday morning. “There’s a lot of other things going on, as you know,” Andrews said.
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connelly, who was long a House aide before Northern Virginians elected him a lawmaker, said “end-of-session sessions are always messy – always.” But with Congress’s approval ratings hovering below 15 percent, Christmas rapidly approaching, liberals fuming and the real threat of taxes going up looming, many in the House and onlookers are wondering if law making is simply mired in inefficiency.
“The final pages of the story have not been written,” Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) said Thursday. “So, I am hopeful for a happy ending.”
you know darn wqell they’re going to pass it....
Let if fail. Let Americans suddenly pay much more for taxes. People need to really experience how dysfunctional Washington is. Maybe it will take their eyeballs off the TV for a while.
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