Tea-Publican treachery and cowardice: a middle-class tax increase in time for Christmas

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The "less-than-do-nothing" Tea-Publican Congress has fallen into total chaos over middle-class tax cuts. Steve Benen reports at the Political Animal – Congress’ conservative, convoluted chaos:

As of Sunday night, the New York Times noted that the deal that would send everyone home for the holidays had “given way to chaos.”

Yesterday, Capitol Hill was even more chaotic.

House Republicans entered the day with one goal in mind: kill a bipartisan compromise on a middle-class tax cut, the week before Christmas, without looking ridiculous. After days of meetings and delays, a broken promise to hold an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill, and a surprising number of pot shots at their Senate Republican colleagues, the House GOP came up with a convoluted scheme. This accurate description of the new plan is likely to make your eyes glaze over:

Initially, the House Republicans planned to hold a standard vote on a “motion to concur” with the Senate tax cut extension…. But in a heated meeting of the Rules Committee that determines how votes are held, the motion was changed to a “motion to reject.”

What was originally scheduled to be three votes — a vote on the Senate bill, a vote to go into conference with the Senate to change the bill, and a vote on a nonbinding resolution relating to the debate — turned into one. The final rule that passed the committee, along party lines, allows for a single vote to reject a motion to agree with the Senate bill. If the motion is rejected, the bill is sent to a conference committee. […]

Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) said a vote to reject the Senate bill and send it to conference is “exactly” the same as a vote to concur with the bill.

It is still “regular order” for the House to specifically vote to “reject” a bill versus holding an up-or-down vote on a bill, Dreier said. Anyone who supports the Senate bill can simply “vote in opposition to that motion to go to conference.” 

The way House Republicans have set this up, those who vote “yes” are actually voting “no” on the bipartisan Senate compromise. In fact, under this scheme, the House will hardly be voting on the Senate version at all — Republicans know they’re inviting political trouble by rejecting a middle-class tax cut — and will instead be kinda sorta voting to send the competing versions of the payroll extension to conference committee.

What was that line from Republicans on judicial confirmations? Oh yeah, "give us an up or down vote." Not for these Tea-Publican cowards.

It would take the Senate a week just to assign members to the committee, and the odds of the two sides quickly finding a financing solution for a 12-month extension before the calendar year wraps up are roughly zero.

In other words, the new House Republican scheme is intended to raise middle-class taxes without making it look like House Republicans are raising middle-class taxes. In two weeks, Americans will discover that their paychecks have shrunk, and because political journalism is largely broken, they’ll be told it’s the result of “both sides” being unwilling to compromise.

Those reports will be wrong.

Remember in November: Not One Tea-Publican. Kick 'em all out!

UPDATE: Boehner schedules fake vote on bipartisan payroll tax holiday extension:

Just to review what is going on with the floor procedure in the House: the bottom line is that after announcing that they would hold an up-or-down vote on passage of the Senate's bipartisan compromise, Republicans have reversed course and are now refusing to hold an up-or-down vote.

The Rule that was reported out last night only allows for consideration of a “motion to disagree with the Senate Amendments.” Under this scenario, it is impossible for the House to vote to pass the bill.

Anyone in favor of the bill, votes “no” (because he/she is voting against the motion to disagree). But even if 218 members vote “no” (which again, in this case means yes), nothing happens. The bill does not pass.

In other words, there is no “up” in the “up-or-down.” It is heads I win, tails you lose.

This means Boehner was afraid that his own members might join Democrats in voting in a bipartisan manner for the bill. So he rigged the process in a way that even a majority of those present couldn't pass the bipartisan Senate plan.

UPDATE: The final vote was 229 – 193. In effect, those voting “yes” were voting to nix the Senate bill and to instead move ahead with House-Senate negotiations to pass a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut, emergency unemployment benefits, and Medicare physician payments, all of which are set to expire on January 1.

In the end, every House Democrat voted against the GOP scheme, and only seven House Republicans broke ranks.

Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have said publicly they have no intention of reopening negotiations. The House GOP has only two choices: raise middle-class taxes or pass the Senate’s bipartisan compromise.

Tea-Publicans reneged on a negotiated deal because the lunatics are running the asylum. The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner should resign. He is without question the WORST. SPEAKER. EVER.