By the bare minimum 60-40 vote, the Senate finally overcame weeks of mindless Republican obstructionism and advanced a bill to extend unemployment benefits. Final passage is expected later this week.
Sadly, our own Senator Brown voted “no” — it was Senators Collins and Snowe of Maine who provided the two necessary Republican votes (Sen. Nelson of NE also voted “no”).
We look forward to Senator Brown’s insistence that the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire unless they are paid for by spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. HA! Figure the odds. đŸ˜€
Please share widely!
56 Democrats
2 GOPgoers
1 Dem4Lieberman
1 Dem-Socialist
Many people (beyond conservatives) are looking for politicians to stop spending our money and our grandchildren’s money. They know to do this will require tough choices which will mean cutting spending on many popular programs, entitlements, and yes, increasing taxes if need be.
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p>Scott Brown was all ready to vote yes for the unemployment checks if it was paid for and not simply borrowed (just throw it on the debt bill as if we have an endless amount of money available… as per Paul Krugman).
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p>I wonder if that is how you will view all tough choices by our pols?
Scott Brown wanted it paid for by taking away from stimulus funds which haven’t yet been spent.
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p>Think Scott Brown would have agreed to have it paid for with an expansion of the estate tax? A new marginal tax bracket for those making $1M a year? Somehow I doubt it.
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p>Methinks it isn’t about deficit reduction — it’s about shrinking government. That’s why methinks it’s a half story.
as big a concern about deficit as all that.
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p>They do, however, show a serious concern for jobs, jobs, and I think, coming in third, jobs.
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p>Wanna pay for this and a lot more? Pass a law to drop the Bush tax cuts 6 months early. That works pretty much.
Why do you think the Republican party is suddenly the party of refusing to add a dime to the deficit? They sure weren’t under Bush.
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p>Oh, and about those tax cuts: what do you think Brown’s position will be on them? Renewing them will of course increase the deficit. Will he insist that they be paid for? Or are tax cuts somehow exempt from the “no new deficit” position of the new GOP?
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p>Honestly, it’s all so ridiculous that it’d be laughable, if the stakes weren’t so high.
I know politics shifts many people’s opinions. A lot of people here have commented about a simple majority is what was needed in the Senate and not 60 votes. How do you think these same people would/will feel if Republicans take over again, simple majority on all bills?
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p>Do the Bush tax cuts include the “marriage” penalty.
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p>If these go away, be prepared to hear them called the “Obama tax increases”!
Bush’s tax cuts are responsible for well over $3 trillion of that deficit – he cut the top tax rate, then fought two wars off the books. Wars which he failed to bring anywhere near a successful conclusion, the costs of which will keep us in de3ficit spending until we finally get out of there. Bush’s tax cuts, if made permanent, will cost us $678 billion in 2011, with the lion’s share going to rich people – we can’t afford to not collect that money.
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p>The Bush tax cuts for middle class folks are being left alone – the tax rate on top earners, those over $200,000, will rise by a few percentage points, but remain under 40%. I make a good living, but I’ve always made under $200,000, so I don’t have a problem if we allow the cuts to expire. I doubt any other middle class person would feel differently than I do, and if anyone making over $250,000 complains to me about the injustice of the “Obama tax increases”, I’ll remind them that the rate was 90% as recently as the Eisenhower administration.
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p>Are you saying if you made “over” $200K you would have a problem?
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p>You are right about the deficit under Bush, let’s get rid of him. Oh wait, he’s already gone (18 months ago) so blaming him for anything does nothing for us… so let’s stop revisiting history unless we are trying to learn something from it.
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p>AS for the Eisenhower administration… who cares? Why not go back even further and find more irrelevant data to shore up your argument as to why we need to pay more taxes?
If I did make over $200,000 and my tax rate went up by 3%, I’d know enough not to complain – and the rates under Eisenhower are germane to this discussion, under an “it can always be worse” argument. Clearly, since tax rates have historically been much higher, rich people have no room to complain.
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p>And while we may be rid of Bush, it will be years before we are rid of his effect on the economy. Time to learn something from it, John – Republicans are lousy stewards of the economy, and you should stop voting for them.
What a funny coincidence — that government suddenly got way too big the second Obama took office.
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p>Careful – your hypocrisy is showing.
which means endorsing “everything” that was done while he was President? I was a big Bush supporter but I fumed about his attempts at making illegal aliens citizens of the US. DO you really think Republicans and/or Conservatives have been happy about the size of our deficit or the growing national debt during the Bush years? We weren’t and if there was a better Conservative available at the time we probably would have voted for him/her.
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p>There are issues I care about and ones I don’t. WHile it hard to fight the tribal urge to agree with the people you like/support, the fact is things should be right/wrong on their merits and not because of who is doing that thing. It would be nice for us common folks if our leaders could do this and support/condemn things because it is right/wrong and not because their tribe requires it. Obama is doing this now on some issues and his tribe isn’t happy.
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p>I’m not saying I don’t do this… I do as do many others. Criticize Deval here and some of his supporters see red and attack. I seem to remember Paul Krugman being a deficit hawk under Bush and now he thinks we need a bigger deficit.
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p>For the record, there were a number of things under Bush I wanted to get fixed which never happened including the national debt, entitlement reform, healthcare reform (still broken), immigration reform (out of control), education reform (Obama is doing a good job), reducing the power of labor unions, dealing with the nuculer đŸ™‚ problems of Iran and North Korea, encouraging manufacturing in the US, reducing our addiction to oil… and more. If Obama is not addressing these things or trying to fix them in a way I don’t support then I can criticize it without being a hypocrite in regards to George Bush.
No spending on defense! Retreat to Missouri.
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p>How do you think WWII was financed? Deficit spending. Would it have been better for everyone if Japanese was the national language west of the Mississippi and German to the east.
but I do think it is usually wrong to take a snapshot in history when something happened and then try to recreate that scenario in a different setting with thousands if not millions of other variables changing (remember when we lost electricity but your phone still worked… but now our phones need electricity too so a change in 1 variable changes the outcome). Very simplistic but I’m kinda busy today…
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p>Maybe if we didn’t have a systemic deficit problem prior to this economic meltdown I would agree to go a few years of deficit spending to prime the pump for the economy and then go back to a balanced budget. But that isn’t our world. We have a huge financial problem of unfunded “everything” (pensions…) with out of control budget spending as a foundation to this “explicit deficit spending”.
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p>If our house was in order I think there would be much more support for spending a lot extra money to jump start things… but it ain’t!
I followed my friend, Brian, up to Scott and my friend asked Are you going to vote for Unemployment extention? Scott Answered “yes”
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p>Thanks alot Scott
enjoy Remember – if it is good for millionaires, billionaires, and bankers Scott will vote YES.
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p>If it is good for ordinary folks and might make the yeomanry, the carpenter, the teacher, the auto body shop worker more secure Scott will vote NO!
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p>Secure workers demand living wages after all, and the elite wants the standard of living for everyone else to go down, down, down.
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p>After all, why else outsource jobs and keep depressing wages? Why else have the CEO and elite profits keep going up, so that no amount for the Neo Barons is ever enough, but living wages are always under attack.
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p>Remember the Hyatt Housekeepers why pay a living wage of $20.00 an hour if you can bring in illegals and the desperate for $7.50 and keep your millions in bonuses?
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p>Are you claiming that Hyatt Boston hires illegal workers?
Nameless subcontractors rotate nameless minimum wage folks in and out who may or may not be legal, may or may not have valid Id (who checks? how thorough are those checks?) and are treated like widgets not people and have US paying their health insurance via masshealth, that is if they have any. Makes you feel great having folks like that, treated like those faceless, nameless, rotated folks are treated in and out of YOUR hotel room. Real secure feeling, right?