Posted on 12/16/2010 9:30:45 PM PST by Second Amendment First
The House late Thursday gave final approval, 277-148, to a temporary extension of the George W. Bush-era tax rates, delivering a significant but politically bruising victory to President Obama.
The $858 billion legislation now heads to the president’s desk for his signature. It extends the Bush tax cuts across the board for two years, slashes the employee payroll tax by 2 percent for one year, renews the estate tax and extends unemployment insurance benefits for 13 months.
The president argued the deal was the best he could get from Republicans who refused to budge on extending tax cuts for the highest-earning Americans, which Democrats wanted to end. The action by Congress prevents a broad tax increase from taking effect when the current rates expire at the end of the year.
The last votes Thursday capped a fractious three-week debate after Obama abandoned his Democratic allies in the House to cut a deal with Senate Republicans. House Democrats revolted over the pact, decrying the president for capitulating on one of his party’s signature domestic priorities: ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
“This basically concedes the argument to the supply-side Republican failed economic policies,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said.
Other Democrats denounced the bill for exploding an already soaring federal budget deficit. “Wake up and listen to the sirens,” Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) said on the House floor. “I can’t believe you talk about this bill as fiscal sanity. It’s fiscal insanity.”
The House Democratic Caucus held a non-binding vote to reject the Obama-GOP deal a week ago, but within days the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill and Pelosi moved ahead with a vote.
House liberals made one last stand on Thursday, forcing the Speaker to pull the tax bill from the floor for several hours because of objections to the amendment process.
While the Democratic leadership decided to allow one attempt to amend the Republican-favored estate tax provision in the Senate-passed bill, liberals complained that the procedure party leaders crafted would not have allowed them to register their objections directly on the legislation.
“The original rule did not allow members to have a clean up-or-down vote on the bill,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said.
After a huddle with members on the House floor and a hastily scheduled meeting in her office, Pelosi agreed to rework the process, allowing separate votes on the estate tax amendment and the underlying legislation.
Pelosi herself did not lobby members on the tax bill, leaving the White House to rally support for a deal it alone had negotiated with Republicans. Vice President Biden delivered a personal pitch to House Democrats, and Obama called lawmakers himself in the days leading up to the vote.
And while lawmakers predicted the Senate bill would pass once it came to a vote in the House, the Obama administration was concerned enough to whip votes against the estate tax amendment in the final hours, a House leadership aide said, not wanting a last-minute change to send the legislation back to the Senate and unravel the accord.
House Republicans broadly backed the measure, some of them reluctantly. Like many other GOP lawmakers, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said he wanted to see the tax rates extended permanently, but his top priority was preventing a tax hike on January 1. “In this legislation I see the glass half-full,” he said on the floor. He acknowledged conservatives who said the GOP could have held out for a better deal. But he concluded: “Personally I am not willing to take a chance. I am going cast the aye vote. I am going to stop the job killing tax increases.”
In a floor speech Thursday night, Pelosi endorsed the estate tax amendment but pointedly refused to explicitly back the underlying bill. The GOP-favored inheritance tax of 35% for individuals worth more than $5 million, the Speaker said, “is not good policy. It does have not have a favorable impact on the deficit. It does not create jobs, It does not grow the economy.”
As to the overhaul compromise, Pelosi said, “Members will have to make their own decisions.”
“I applaud President Obama for his side of the ledger,” Pelosi said. “I’m sorry the price that had to be paid for it is so high.”
Where can I find out how my congress critter voted?
Bush
Wins
Again
We’ll see how this works out. Maybe if the GOP makes Obama and the Dems vote against zeroing out the inheritance tax and other detestable provisions of this plan in the new congress, it will bring the senate and the presidency back to GOP control.
What a hoot!! zero has to plead with his own party to support the Bush tax cuts that he has routinely blamed for the economy he inherited.
It is to laugh!!!
So the Democrats have voted for tax cuts for the rich!
Let’s see if the MSM continues to call them “tax cuts for the rich.”
No, they won’t. Because that involves the facts and facts don’t matter to today’s journalists.
Republicans are a bunch of sell out socialist bastards!!!!
Democrats have no idea as to how wealth is created. Their demand-side economics is ruining our nation.
Gee, isn't that what Bush tried to do a few years back, except that he wanted the condition in place that the money go into a retirement account like an IRA or 401(k). As I recall, the Democrats screamed bloody murder at that, yet now they allow the same tax reduction with no provision that the money go towards a retirement account. What hypocrites!
I would encourage everyone with a 401(k) to direct that additional 2% into that account.
To see Bush’s predecessor and successor lobbying for his tax cuts brought a certain joy to my heart.
To see Bush’s predecessor and successor lobbying for his tax cuts brought a certain joy to my heart.
Whatever do you mean? They just extended tax cuts. /s
And it is still for two years - right?
So, in two years, Tea Party candidates will be campaigning for reduced taxes, etc. With this crappy tax “plan” the economy will be in no better shape, and the libs will use it against us. “We already tried cutting taxes and that didn’t work.....”
“Where can I find out how my congress critter voted?”
I got this off Hot Air- they say they think this is it (although the title is mislabeled):
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll647.xml
Seeing how this bill originated in the Senate instead of the House, how can it possibly become law?
But, they did NOT “cut taxes”...and I think in 2 years if things haven’t improved.....ppl will NOT be listening to the DEMS.....
That has been my question all along. Is the “hand me down” tax temporary?
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