I want to scream. What in the hell is wrong with the Democrats?
The House has done as it should and passed the extension of the tax cut for the middle class without extending the tax cut for the rich.
But everyone in the media is saying, "It's just a symbolic action, because the Democrats would need Republican votes to pass it in the Senate."
What must be done is obvious: Harry Reid has to bring the House bill up for a vote and let the Senate Republicans filibuster it. None of this hand-wringing stuff about, "Oh, we don't have 60 votes, so we can't have a vote."
Make the Republicans really filibuster a bill that would prevent a tax increase for more than 98 percent of Americans.
The Republicans wouldn't dare to do it -- and if they did, it would be even better for the Democrats.
If there is a reason why this approach wouldn't work, I'd like to hear Senator Reid and President Obama tell us what it is.
If Obama and the Senate Democrats don't force the Republicans to make their complete allegiance to the hyper-rich more evident than ever by bringing this bill to the Senate floor, they will show themselves to be utterly pathetic.
It's a no-lose situation for Democrats, yet they seem afraid to stand up for their convictions even when they cannot lose.
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That would take, perhaps, more time than we have. Certainly more than 250 words."
"If there is a reason why this approach wouldn't work, I'd like to hear Senator Reid and President Obama tell us what it is."
This was NOT in the small list of things that Reid put on the schedule before the break. To add it now and actually get it ahead of the other things (there's a ton of things the House passed that are just sitting there because the votes didn't exist in the Senate. Cap and Trade for instance. In order to jump past all these other things that were approved before the dem middle class tax cut extension would require either that they go through a lengthy process WHICH THEY NO LONGER HAVE TIME TO DO or that the regular rules be waived "by unanimous consent." Since one option is too late, and the other option requires every single repub senator to buy off on it, it ain't going to happen.
http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/unanimous_consent.htm
You can find these things out yourself with a little bit of research. You needn't really bother Harry Reid or President Obama with simple questions like this.