"Words that make actions speak louder."
Since I had the temerity to mention that the America’s wealthiest heirs should pay their fair share on their inheritance windfalls to help reduce the deficit, their front groups have been very busy attacking me. Yesterday I noted some of lies the American Family Business Institute used to attack me to try to shift attention […]
Yesterday I had the nerve to mention that the superwealthy opponents of the estate tax are deathly afraid that once the current law brings back the estate tax next year to a 55% tax rate and a $2M inheritance income threshold, Congress won’t want to touch it because it will grea
One of the conservative goals former President George W. Bush was unable to get through the Senate was “making the tax cuts permanent.” He only got them passed — using Senate budget reconciliation rules — by employing a budget gimmick to mask the 10-year cost. Simply make all the tax cuts expire in 2011, producing […]
There were two ways last month’s health care summit could have been a success. Republican leaders actually would support legislation that incorporated some of their ideas. Or, in the far more likely event that the GOP continued it’s full-court obstructionist press, the public would recognize that reform would only pass if Democrats acted alone, and […]
The President and congressional leaders have repeatedly acceded to the demands of the right-leaning faction of the Democratic Party on health care. Typically, when congresspeople get what they want in a bill, they proceed to vote for that bill. Yet not one Democratic “No” vote on the more liberal House health care bill has stepped […]
After President Obama finished his speech calling for an up-or-down vote on health care reform, a caller to C-Span spouted the usual right-wing complaint, “Why do we have to rush this?” I could not help but chuckle. How can anyone with a straight face still complain about rushing, after the health care debate has now […]
Today in the Washington Post opinion section, Sen. Orrin Hatch called using Senate budget rules to pass health care an undemocratic affront to the Constitution: This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of […]
In Sen. Jim Bunning’s words, he’s not obstructing because he’s against unemployment insurance. (That would be Sen. Jon Kyl) . He just wants the cost of extending unemployment insurance to be offset by cutting back on the Recovery Act, so we don’t increase the budget deficit. Congressional Democrats have not really challenged Bunning on this […]
Minutes ago on the Senate floor, the Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl just defending Sen. Jim Bunning’s filibuster by attacking the entire premise for unemployment insurance during a protracted period of job losses. Sen. Kyl argued that unemployment insurance would not lead an increase in jobs, and then said: It could be argued it is […]
The exploitation of the Senate rules to obstruct the majority will has reach it’s inevitable but inane endpoint. Sen. Jim Bunning has single-handledly forced the furlough of 2,000 transportation workers and cut off hundreds of thousands unemployed Americans from critical assistance — benefits that stimulate the overall economy for everyone. That’s what happens when the […]