Just as I predicted the other day, “The lickspittle lackeys of Plutocrats and Corporations in Congress, i.e., the Gang of Twenty, are opposed to increased funding for IRS enforcement and audits to collect the taxes actually owed by Plutocrats and Corporations.”
Joan McCarter reports, Republicans double down on protecting wealthy tax cheats at the expense of nation’s infrastructure:
Senate Republicans are dead set on making sure that the rich people who they’ve been helping to avoid pay their taxes continue to have the privilege of cheating the rest of us. It would appear that the Democrats participating in the sham called bipartisan infrastructure negotiations are okay with that. According to Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, the group is “looking at alternative pay-fors to IRS tax enforcement.”
Again, this is about letting the wealthy off the hook for the taxes they already owe. It’s not about new taxes. It’s not about raising anyone’s taxes. It’s about continuing to allow the super-rich to cheat the rest of us, who do pay our tax bills every year.
Republicans have been raising holy hell over the idea that President Joe Biden wants to strengthen the IRS enough so that it can go after the really big tax cheats, the ones robbing the nation of hundreds of billions of dollars, instead of the working poor people who are easier to audit, the ones who can’t afford lawyers to intervene. Fully funding the IRS and clawing those owed tax dollars out of the hands of people who can damned well afford to pay has been included as one of the ways that the bipartisan group has said they’ll pay for their almost $600 billion proposal for hard infrastructure.
Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) admitted that increased IRS enforcement against wealthy tax cheats was dropped because Senate Republicans complained. Sen. Rob Portman says IRS enforcement dropped as way to pay for infrastructure plan.
That, apparently, is out and apparently Democrats in the bipartisan group are accepting that fact. Even though it’s the likes of extremist Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn who are raising hell—extremists who were never going to vote for an infrastructure plan that helps President Joe Biden in the first place. Senate aides working with the group confirmed to The Washington Post that “it is likely to be removed from the deal.”
That means that the fire sale of existing infrastructure to the highest hedge fund bidders, who would then be in a position to make the public pay for its use all over again, could still be in. Because they have to figure out how pay for it somehow anyway. Or at least they say they do, which they really don’t because borrowing money is still cheaper than dirt. [But deficit spending!] As of earlier this month, White House aides were telling Democrats in phone conversations that was not an option, but we haven’t seen a high-level, public denunciation of that idea.
Republicans aren’t just having hissy fits over the IRS making them and their buddies pay all their taxes, however; they’re outraged that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants them to finish their work.
Never mind that they’ve supposedly been working on this since April, when Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who is so concerned that there just isn’t enough time, started negotiating with Biden. They announced this supposed bipartisan agreement more than three weeks ago. She added that she thought Schumer’s scheduling the vote was an attempt “to put pressure on the group to either put up or shut up.”
Well … yes. And about time, too. Because seriously, they’ve been at this forever. Now, we all know Republicans are awfully rusty when it comes to doing actual work (like writing bills), but there’s a bunch of Democrats who could be doing all of that hard part. So what in the hell have they been doing all these weeks, that they can’t be ready by Wednesday?
Exactly! Sedition Caucus Republican obstructionists do not get to run out the clock with their endless bad faith negotiations.
They’ve been wasting time, is what they’ve been doing, hoping to draw this process out and have it die from neglect. And moderate Democrats have been letting them get away with it because “bipartisanship.” Now that the $3.5 trillion budget resolution train is getting loaded up, yes, this group needs to put up or shut up. And pay their damned taxes.
Fortunately, IRS enforcement and higher taxes on wealthy Plutocrats and corporations are in the Democrats-only budget reconciliation plan, so this is really about Republicans not having to take a vote on making their wealthy Plutocrat and corporate masters pay what they actually owe in taxes. Did I mention they are lickspittle lackeys?
Republicans today are all Internet trolls, something they learned from “Orange Julius” Caesar. So Trump fluffer extraordinaire Sen. Lindsey “Stonewall” Graham has offered up some trolling to “stop” the Democrats’ budget reconciliation plan. Inspired by Texas Dems, Lindsey Graham urges Republicans to ‘leave town’ to stop $3.5 trillion budget package:
In a ploy to hamper Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget package, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham on Sunday proposed his fellow Republican senators follow the example of the Democratic Texas lawmakers who left their state to stop legislation that would have restricted voting rights.
Because defending the sacred right to vote of Americans is just like defending wealthy Plutocrat and corporate tax cheats from having to pay taxes in Lindsey’s diseased mind.
“You got to have a quorum to pass a bill in the Senate. I would leave before I let that happen,” the South Carolina Republican said in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “To my Republican colleagues, we may learn something from our Democratic friends in Texas when it comes to avoiding a $3.5 trillion tax and spend package: Leave town.”
Dude, I would gladly pay your bus fare to go anywhere you want to to go, if you would promise to get out of town and stay gone – forever. I am so fucking tired of you. I never want to see or hear from you, ever again.
Despite his years in the Senate, this Trump fluffer Internet troll apparently does not know the Senate rules:
Despite Graham’s conviction that he would be willing to skip town to stop the budget package — which he described as “a tax and spend dream of the socialist left” — the plan would probably not work. Senate rules only require 51 members to be present to meet quorum, so if just one Republican showed up at the U.S. Capitol, the strategy would fail.
Paging Sen. Lisa Murkowski, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Republicans don’t want you, it’s your payback time, baby!
The proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation package would attempt to bypass GOP opposition to several of President Biden’s top economic priorities, including putting money toward fighting climate change and expanding Medicare benefits. Using a process called reconciliation, Democrats hope to pass the budget without Republican support.
Graham said he would “use everything lawfully in my toolbox,” including purposefully leaving Washington to avoid a vote on the proposal.
Go! Shut your Trump fluffing glory hole, and just go!
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Wendy Whiner, er, Susan Collins, the mythical moderate from Maine, is whining that the Gang of Twenty want more time to waste in pursuit of the mythical “bipartisanship” in order to run out the clock on the Biden agenda. Screw her.
The Hill (which laughingly refers to these Republicans as “centrists” – they are not), reports “GOP centrists call on Schumer to delay infrastructure vote”, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/563904-gop-centrists-call-on-schumer-to-delay-infrastructure-vote
“My hope is that Sen. Schumer will agree to postpone the vote. We’re making significant progress,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
“We just had, a subgroup of us, had a meeting. We met very late last night with the group of 10 and I would hope that Sen. Schumer would recognize the good-faith effort that we’re making, that this is extraordinarily complex and that we’re working as hard as we can,” she added.
Collins declined to say whether she would vote “yes” or “no” on the motion to begin debate but reiterated “I want him to delay the vote” and said she would speak to Schumer personally.
“Mr. 47 percent,” Mittens Romney, chimed in: “I think it should be Monday, not Wednesday. Give us time to resolve the remaining issues,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said.
.Romney said “of course” the talks should continue even if Republicans vote Wednesday against bringing the bipartisan bill to the floor.
There is no good faith, this is all part of Mitch McConnell’s rope-a-dope strategy to get “moderate” Democrats to run out the clock by chasing the mythical “bipartisanship.”
UPDATE: Politico reports, “GOP: Bipartisan infrastructure deal has ‘no chance’ on Wednesday”, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/gop-infrastructure-deal-500166
Senate Republican leaders warned Monday that they will filibuster a Wednesday test vote on a bipartisan infrastructure deal if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer follows through with forcing one.
As a bipartisan group of senators sought to finish its work ahead of Schumer’s planned midweek vote, GOP leaders said their members would not vote to advance the effort until the bill is fully fleshed out. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that Republicans “need to see the bill before voting to go to it. I think that’s pretty easily understood.”
Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 Senate Republican, predicted there is “no chance” that 10 Republicans would join 50 Senate Democrats to advance the bipartisan agreement — vocally endorsed by President Joe Biden — over the first filibuster hurdle.
“There’s no bill. You can’t expect that many Republicans to move forward on a pretty vague concept,” Blunt said. “It’s pretty much up to the majority leader. If he wants to kill the bipartisan bill, insisting on a vote before there’s a bill is a certain way to kill the bipartisan discussion.”
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That’s rich: Republicans who have been negotiating in bad faith – their goal has always been to run out the clock on the Biden agenda – would not agree to any “pay for” which would require their wealthy Plutocrat and corporate bosses to pay more taxes, and who are too incompetent to actually write a bill, are using this as an excuse to vote against the so-called “bipartisan” infrastructure agreement they always intended to vote against from the start, and to blame it on Senator Schumer. They are shameless.
Hopefully the “moderate” Democrats in the Gang of Twenty will now have finally learned their lesson about “bipartisanship,” and quit wasting everyone’s time in pursuit of a mythical beast.